


The Heart of a Man

by DizzyDrea



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Human Experimentation, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-27 18:20:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17771885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DizzyDrea/pseuds/DizzyDrea
Summary: Nothing in all Will Zimmerman's years with the Sanctuary had prepared him for this. For the one thing there's no coming back from. Where he goes from here will be the greatest challenge of his life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Rough Trade Nano 2018. I'm just now getting around to cleaning it up and posting because real life has been a runaway train since the first of the year. It was fun to revisit Sanctuary, which was always one of my favorite shows, going all the way back to the original web series. The inspiration for this story was twofold. First, I've always wondered how Will would cope with being transformed into something other than human, and there not being a way to change him back. The other inspiration for this story came out of the Season Three episode _Carentan_. I wanted to explore Will's relationship with Magnus, and the ramifications of his devotion to her on his life. So, for purposes of this story, Abby is basically a ghost. I've not given an explanation for her absence, mostly because I don't like her character and would rather pretend that she doesn't even exist. Also, this takes place sometime after 3.16 _Awakening_ , 3.17 _Normandy_ and 3.18 _Carentan_ , which are the three episodes I drew heavily from as I wrote this.
> 
> Disclaimer: Sanctuary and all its particulars is the property of Sanctuary 1 Productions, Stage 3 Media, Damian Kindler, Amanda Tapping and a lot of other people who aren't me. I'm doing this for fun and for practice. Mostly for fun.

Many a monster wears the form of a man; it is better of the two to have the heart of a man and the form of a monster.  
~Jeanne Marie Le Prince de Beaumont, Beauty and the Beast, 1756

~o~

Will Zimmerman startled awake between one breath and the next. He shook his head, trying to shake out the cobwebs. The first thing he noticed was the pounding headache, followed by the dry, cottony feeling in his mouth.

He squinted his eyes open, sweeping them around the room. It was a small room, with just a bare lightbulb over his head and a window high on the wall to his right. The door in front of him was closed, not that he could reach it. When he tried to get up from the chair he'd woken in, he found himself tied in place.

He tugged at the ropes holding him to the chair, but they wouldn’t budge. Same for the ones that held his legs in place. He strained against his restraints to glance more fully around the room, but there wasn't anything else in the room besides the chair he was tied to.

Knowing it was useless to try, he stopped fighting and sat back, closing his eyes and assuming a more meditative posture. He'd chided Biggie for his zen tendencies, but right now he was grateful for the lessons. He slowed his breathing and heart rate, both of which had elevated the more he'd struggled against his bindings.

He listened carefully for any sounds, but couldn't hear anything beyond his own breathing. Wherever he was being held, they'd managed to isolate him well. Which might make it harder for Magnus and the rest to find him. He had no idea how long he'd been out, but he knew she'd come looking for him. Eventually. He'd just have to hold on long enough for her to come through.

In the meantime, he tried casting his mind back to the last thing he could remember. He had a vague, fuzzy memory of a meeting with Magnus, but he couldn’t remember much beyond that. He saw brief flashes of a bar, and a woman, but nothing he could grab onto. He figured that meant he'd been roofied, which made him feel worse, not better.

The sound of footsteps outside the door reached him. He tensed his body, though it wasn't like he could do much tied to a chair. When the door opened, a tall woman with dark hair and striking features walked in. He vaguely recognized her as the woman from the bar the night before, but he had no real idea who she was.

"Oh good, you're awake," she said. She stopped just inside the room, tucking her hands into the pockets of her lab coat. It was a far cry from the slinky little black dress she'd been wearing in the memory flashes he'd seen. "I do so much prefer for my subjects to be awake."

"Subject?" Will asked. "What are you planning to do to me? Test some new drug? I got news for you. I'm not a lab rat."

The woman chuckled. "No, you're not. What you are, Will Zimmerman, is the perfect test subject for my new serum."

"Whoa," he said, shaking his head. "How do you know my name?"

"We know a great deal about you, Will," the woman said. She stepped further into the room, walking slowly around him. "We know you're a forensic psychologist, and that you work at the Sanctuary."

Will's head whipped around, eyes wide with shock. "How do you know that?"

"We've been watching you for some time," she said as she passed behind him. "You really are good at what you do, and under Helen Magnus' tutelage, you've blossomed. We've been looking for someone like you for quite some time. Imagine our surprise when we found you in the most obvious place imaginable."

"Who's we?" Will asked. He felt like he needed to stall for time, because whatever she planned to test on him couldn't be good, and the longer he put it off, the more likely that Magnus and Kate would find him and rescue him. 

"Now, shall we proceed?" she said. She turned quickly and clamped on to his left arm, pushing the sleeve of his shirt up and over the elbow. She produced a syringe from her pocket and popped the cap off.

"Whoa, whoa, wait a minute," Will said, feeling the panic start to crawl up his throat. "There's no need to rush. I mean, we should talk about this. Are you even sure that stuff will work? You don't want to—ow! Geeze, be gentle, will ya?"

The woman chuckled as she slid the needle into his arm. He watched with dismay as she pressed the plunger and pushed the liquid into his vein. He had a brief, slightly hysterical thought that he was going to end up green and scaly again, but he tamped the thought down. He just needed to hold on for a little longer and Magnus would find him. 

She stepped back and watched him for a moment, tucking her hands into her pockets once more. "You know, I thought it was the height of irony when we took Ashley and transformed her. The great Helen Magnus, nearly brought down by her own daughter. It was such a shame that she proved to be just as uncontrollable as the rest. But you. You'll be different. You'll be a masterpiece, Will. My masterpiece."

"What the hell have you done?" Will shouted, struggling with the ropes as the panic rose inside him. "What have you done to me?"

"I've given you a gift, Will," she said. "You should be grateful."

"Grateful that I'll turn into some mindless monster, like what you did to Ashley?" Will said, still struggling, though he could feel weakness creeping into his limbs. "Jesus, I thought we'd destroyed the Cabal."

"Oh, you tried," she said, smiling. "But we're a bit smarter than you gave us credit for. We went underground. We waited. I knew there'd come a time when we would be able to return. You are the first step on that path. You should feel honored. The others lobbied for someone else to be our first, but I knew you'd be perfect. And how poetic, that the great Helen Magnus will lose her daughter and her protégé to us. After all she's done to us, it's such a small piece of the revenge we owe her."

"You're not going to get away with this, you know," Will said. He could feel his insides start to clench, pain ripping through his body as whatever was in that serum worked its way through his body. "Magnus will find me. She'll find you. You won't get away with this."

"Oh, but I've already gotten away with it," she said. "You're changing already. And when the transformation is complete, you'll be mine. Not hers. Mine. Then we'll see who wins and who loses."

Will clenched his jaw, fighting against the pain searing through his body. "I'll never be yours."

She crossed the room slowly, leaning down so she was eye to eye with Will. "You have no idea, Will. But you'll understand soon enough."

She turned and left the room, closing the door behind him. Will sat back in the chair, shivers wracking his body. He had no idea what she'd used on him, but whatever it was, the pain was debilitating. He could feel consciousness slipping away, could see the blackness creeping in. He fought it as long as he could before he passed out, letting the bliss of unconsciousness take the pain away.

~o~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference, here's the inspiration for [Dr. Forsythe](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1072555/mediaviewer/rm1695394048).


	2. Chapter 2

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.  
~Friedrich Nietzsche

~o~

Helen Magnus' lips compressed into a thin slash across her face as she watched the thermal imaging feed on the monitor in the back of the van. Henry was panning and scanning the camera mounted to the van's roof, trying to get a picture of what was going on inside the warehouse. 

Magnus was furious. Will had been taken last night from Old City, and it had taken them more than twelve hours to even realize he was gone. She blamed herself most of all. She felt as though she should have known that something was amiss, but she'd simply thought he was tired and that was why he hadn't come to visit her that evening, as had become their custom since returning from Carentan.

When he hadn't shown up for their usual Morning Briefing, her sense of unease ratcheted up. It had taken them the better part of the day to discover where he'd gone the night before, and track him from that location—a quiet bar in the heart of Old City—back to this warehouse where he was being held by an unknown group.

"Looks like a couple guys on patrol," Kate said, pointing to the image of two men on opposite sides of the building.

"I'm guessing this guy's on guard duty, too," Henry chipped in, pointing to a lone figure outside a room in the center of the warehouse, where there were two other people moving about.

"And this is probably Will," Kate said, pointing to another room where a single heat signature sat unmoving in an isolated room on the opposite side of the building from the other two heat signatures. "He's not moving. Not a good sign."

Magnus scowled at the screen, seeing Kate cut a quick, worried glance at her before refocusing on the monitor. They all knew how precious Will was to her, whether she'd ever said it out loud or not, so she had no hope of hiding just how affected she was by his capture. She could only hope he'd not been harmed. 

"Alright," Magnus said, glancing between the other two. "Kate, you'll need to neutralize the two roving guards. Henry—"

"The stationary one," Henry said. "I got just the thing."

"Once they're neutralized, we focus on the two in this room," she said, pointing to the two figures moving around the larger of the two rooms. "We'll extract Will after we've secured the facility. Are we ready?"

Both of them nodded and followed her out of the van. "Use whatever force is necessary on the guards, but anyone else, use the tranquilizer guns. I want them alive, if possible."

"Gotta ask somebody the hard questions," Biggie chimed in over the comms. He was seeing the same feed they had in the van, so Magnus knew he'd alert them to any sudden movements as they made their way through the warehouse.

They moved on silent feet, headed for a side door down a quiet alley. They'd done a complete survey of the building, finding no external cameras, which seemed odd unless one assumed that this particular group held no fear of discovery. It was a puzzle for another time, but Magnus fully intended to get to the bottom of that particular mystery.

Kate tried turning the knob on the door, though none of them expected it to be unlocked. To everyone's surprise, the knob turned and they were able to slip inside unnoticed. There was a level of arrogance at work that both concerned and puzzled Magnus. This group—whoever they were—seemed to have no operational security whatsoever, though they'd gone to great pains to conceal their location.

Kate slipped away once they were inside, and Magnus could hear one body hit the floor with barely a sound, not far from where they'd entered.

"That's one," Kate murmured over the comms channel, as if they hadn't heard the sound in the near-darkness.

"The other one is on his way around to you," Biggie said. "ETA about 45 seconds."

Magnus and Henry melted back into the shadows and waited until they heard another tell-tale grunt, followed by the sound of a body hitting the floor.

Kate joined them, flashing a smile, though the only thing they could see was the white of her teeth in the dim lighting of the warehouse. Magnus nodded and moved down the hallway, Kate and Henry following behind. They glanced into rooms as they passed them, but much of the warehouse was empty and hadn't seen use in quite some time. They stuck to the perimeter, where the storage rooms and offices were situated, rather than cross the empty warehouse floor where they'd be vulnerable if they were seen.

Henry slipped away as they worked their way further into the warehouse, and only a few minutes later reported that the last guard had been taken care of.

"No change in the status of the other two," Biggie reported as they made their way to the largest of the rooms. "They don't appear to be aware of your presence."

"All the better for us," Magnus muttered. She looked at Kate and Henry. "On three."

They both nodded, and Magnus counted down quietly. When she reached one, Kate kicked in the door and the three burst through, guns raised. They appeared to have genuinely taken them by surprise, if the shocked looks on their faces meant anything at all. There was a small man, short with somewhat mousy features, and a woman about her height with dark hair and appealing features.

"Well, well," the woman said as she raised her hands. "If it isn't Helen Magnus. You took considerably less time than I'd anticipated to find us. I was expecting to be long gone before you even found this warehouse."

"What have you done with Will?" Magnus asked, completely ignoring the woman's words.

Her smile was disturbing, to say the least. "I've done what you wouldn't, of course. But don't worry, I haven't harmed him. Much. Although, I think you're going to be disappointed when you find that he's no longer yours."

Magnus didn't even blink, she simply shot the woman with her tranquilizer gun, watching with some small satisfaction when she crumpled to the floor. She ignored the looks the others were giving her, resisting the urge to shoot the man, who was still standing, stock still, arms up, fear registering on his face.

"Let's get the clean-up crew in here," Magnus said. She holstered her gun and turned for the door. "Secure these two for transport. We'll want to question them later."

She heard the thwup of a tranquilizer gun going off, and the sound of a body hitting the floor as she walked out, heading for the room that presumably held Will. She wasn't surprised that Kate had tranquilized the male; he would be easier to transport while unconscious, and she wouldn't dare gainsay Kate's right to take out her temper on the ones holding Will. Magnus had done the same, after all.

She reached the room they believed Will to be in, visually inspecting the door to make sure there were no traps. She didn't expect there to be, considering the lax security in the whole building, but it always paid to be a little paranoid. 

"The room still has a single occupant," Biggie murmured over the comms line. "Haven't seen anyone else enter or leave since you arrived."

"You wouldn't happen to know if the door is locked, would you?"

"Given that they didn't lock any other door in the place, I'm guessing not," Henry said as he approached her from behind. When Magnus sent a questioning look his way, he merely shrugged. "Kate seemed to be fine. The crew is boxing up the papers and computers. Looked like some sort of research lab. We'll take it all back to the Sanctuary and go through it there."

Magnus nodded and pulled her gun—the real one, not the tranquilizer gun; if there was someone inside with Will, she wanted them dead, not injured—and nodded to Henry, who'd taken a stance on the opposite side of the door. He nodded back and turned the knob on the door. It swung in, and Magnus stepped inside, followed by Henry.

What she saw inside made her blood run cold. Will was tied to a chair in the middle of the room, slumped over unconscious. He appeared unharmed, but appearances could be deceiving. She holstered her gun and rushed to his side, reaching out a hand to tilt his head back. The snap of a static charge had her snatching her hand back. Henry gave her a confused look.

"Static discharge?" he asked, circling around the chair, looking for wires or anything that might produce an electric current.

"A bit," she said, nodding.

Henry crouched down, practically crawling under the chair. When he pulled back, he shook his head. "Nothing I can see. Maybe the air in here is dry."

Magnus nodded and tentatively reached out for Will once more. When nothing happened as her fingers skimmed his cheek, she breathed a sigh of relief. "Let's get him untied and back to the van. I want to get him back to the Sanctuary as soon as possible. There's no telling what they've done to him."

"Right," Henry said, nodding his head. 

Between the two of them, they had Will untied and up out of the chair in no time. Henry pulled Will across his shoulders and half-dragged, half-carried him out to the van, Magnus trailing behind. She trusted Kate to oversee the recovery of the lab and research material, as well as the eventual disposition of the guards and the two scientists. 

Magnus' entire focus, for the moment, had to be on Will.

~o~

Will came awake much more slowly this time, as if he knew instinctively that he was in a place of safety. His eyes fluttered open, only to slam shut when the light in the room felt like tiny knives stabbing him relentlessly. He moaned, turning his face away from the offending light source, only to find it was everywhere and he couldn't escape.

"Shhhh, Will," a soft voice floated to him in the quiet room. He turned towards it, seeking the comfort he knew it would bring. A cool hand stroked over his forehead. "Can you open your eyes for me?"

He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. "Hurts. Too bright."

The hand on his forehead disappeared, leaving him feeling bereft for the briefest moment. Then the lights dimmed in the room and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Better?"

"Mmmm," he hummed. "Yeah."

He opened his eyes to find the room dim, and Magnus' worried face hovering over him. A quick glance around the room told him he was in the infirmary, which made sense. He felt like roadkill, so that was probably the best place he could be. 

"How do you feel?" she asked him.

"Like I've gone ten rounds with the Big Guy," he muttered as he opened his eyes just a little. The room swam into view; Magnus had turned the overhead lights off, so that the only illumination in the room came from the small lamp at his bedside. He pushed up a little, but really, he didn't have the energy to do much more than lay there. "What happened?"

Magnus winced. "We were hoping you could tell us. It took us rather longer than it should have to discover that you weren't anywhere in the Sanctuary. And longer yet to divine that you'd been abducted in Old City."

"I remember… there was a woman," Will said as he leaned back and stared at the ceiling. "I think she roofied my drink, to be honest, because I don't remember a helluva lot about being grabbed. I was being held in this warehouse, I think. And she…"

He rubbed his hand over the inside of his left elbow, glancing down to see a bruise had formed.

"What, Will?" Magnus asked. "What did she do?"

"She injected me with something," Will whispered, looking up at Magnus with a little bit of panic in his eyes. "It hurt like hell, whatever it was. Do you know? What she was trying to do?"

"We retrieved all the computers and the lab samples, but it'll take time for us to sort out what they were trying to accomplish," she said. "I've drawn blood, but it's possible that whatever she injected you with is long since out of your system."

"Great," he said.

"How do you feel?" Magnus asked again. "I mean, apart from the light sensitivity. Is there anything... off?"

Will took stock of himself. He felt tired, achy, which made sense considering he felt like his muscles had all locked up at once after she'd injected him with… whatever that had been. He still felt a little cottony, but again, that could just as easily be the drugs and whatever else she'd done to him. His skin was crawling, but that was nothing a good shower couldn't fix.

"Eh, I've been worse," he said. "I think I'd really just like a shower, and to sleep in my own bed."

Magnus smiled at him, brushing her cool fingers over his forehead once more. "I see no reason you can't do just that. But if you start to notice anything unusual, please come see me. Alright?"

"Yeah, I can do that," Will said, smiling with relief. "Hey, how long was I out?"

"I've no idea how long before we found you that you lost consciousness, but you've been asleep here in the infirmary for the last eighteen hours," Magnus said as she helped him sit up and swing his legs over the side of the bed.

Will whistled. "Wow."

"Yes," she said. "We were understandably concerned when you remained unconscious for so long. But you seem to have retained all your faculties. As for the rest, only time will tell."

"Story of my life," he said, flashing a quick smile.

"Come on," Magnus said. "Let's get you to your room. I'd still like to see you rest for a day or two more, but you can do that just as easily in your room as here."

"Magnus," he said, resting his hand on her arm, drawing her attention to him. "Thank you. Seriously, thank you for coming for me."

"Oh, Will," she said, brushing her fingers across his cheek. "I hope you know that I will always come for you. No matter where you are, I will always find you."

"I believe you," he said, knowing it was the truth, down to his bones.

~o~


	3. Chapter 3

If you battle monsters, you don't always become a monster. But you aren't entirely human anymore, either.  
~Jonathan Maberry

~o~

Will was curled up in the corner of the couch in the media room, a book lying forgotten beside him, the tv on low casting a flickering shadow across the shelves and furniture when Kate found him the next day. He'd slept as much as he could, but in truth, he wasn't really tired anymore. He felt restless, but as he was still on mandatory rest, per Magnus' orders, he couldn't work to pass the time.

Not that working held any appeal. He couldn't focus; he'd tried one of his favorite books and the TV, but neither had held his attention for long. He'd thought about taking a walk to spend some of the pent-up energy, but just the walk from his rooms to the media room had left him feeling spent and haggard. He felt like he should be doing something, but he had neither the energy nor, more importantly, the slightest clue what he should be doing. 

It had been a long time since he'd been this unsettled, since before he'd come to the Sanctuary. He had no idea how to combat this feeling anymore, especially considering his usual methods were unavailable to him at the moment.

"How you feeling?" Kate asked as she flopped down onto the couch beside him.

Will shrugged. "I've been better. Don't get me wrong, I've been worse. I just… hate feeling useless, I guess."

"I hear ya," Kate said. She nudged his shoulder with her own. "But you know that we were all worried about you. I'm kinda glad you can't go anywhere. Easier to keep an eye on you."

Will ducked his head, slightly embarrassed by Kate's words. It wasn't that she tended to be generous with her praise, more like if she said it, you knew she felt it and then some because she normally hid that sort of thing under layers of bravado and sarcasm.

"I'll try to stay out of trouble for a while, okay?" he said.

"No, you won't, but that's okay," Kate said on a chuckle. 

They lapsed into silence then, and Kate reached for the remote, switching the station and turning up the volume. It didn't hold Will's attention any better, but it was nice to have the company. Just having Kate beside him kept his thoughts from spiraling around what had happened and how he could have avoided being captured.

He must have fallen asleep, because some time later he found himself waking up to the smell of food. He craned his neck around to see the Big Guy walking in with a tray.

"Hey," he said, smiling at Biggie.

"Brought you some lunch," Biggie said, setting the tray down on the coffee table in front of Will.

"Oh, hey, thanks, but…" Will struggled with how to say what he was feeling, then decided to just say it. "Food's not really appetizing right now."

He rubbed at his stomach absently. The truth was, nothing had smelled right, much less tasted right since he'd woken up in the infirmary. Not even coffee, which was depressing all on its own.

"You need to eat," Biggie said. He picked up the mug from the tray and handed it to Will, an expectant look on his face.

Will gulped, flashing a weak smile. Rather than disappoint his friend, he brought the mug to his mouth and took a tentative sip. The bright zing of tomato soup burst over his tongue. But rather than repulse him, it tasted like home and family. He gave a relieved sigh, closing his eyes as he swallowed the sip gratefully, taking another, larger sip just to be sure he hadn't imagined anything.

When he opened his eyes, he found both Biggie and Kate watching him with lopsided grins on their faces. Will flashed a small smile in return.

"Okay, so it's pretty good," he said. "Thanks."

Biggie just smiled and handed him the plate. "Grilled cheese. Should be cool enough to eat."

Will took a slice and bit off a small bite, but just as with the soup, the taste of melted cheese and toasted bread was like manna from heaven. Will actually groaned at how good it tasted.

"How'd you do that?" he demanded when he'd finally swallowed the bite.

"Do what?" Biggie asked.

"Make it taste so much better than anything I've eaten in the last day," Will said. "Or basically forever."

Biggie just chuckled as he walked out of the room. He paused behind Will, smacking him in the back of the head before rubbing gently over the same spot he'd smacked. His low rumble followed him out of the room.

Kate watched him slowly work his way through the mug of soup and plate of sandwiches, declining his offer to share. It was more than a little disconcerting to have someone watching him eat, but he figured they were all going to be clingy for a while. He couldn’t remember the last time the Big Guy had brought him food, and he knew better than to expect it to continue once he was better. 

But for now, he could allow his friends to show their gratitude at getting him back, safe and mostly sound.

~o~

The soft knock brought Magnus out of the work fugue she'd settled into that morning. Henry was still hard at work decrypting the laptops, so she'd been stuck going over the paper records they'd rescued along with Will. 

It was slow going but a theme was emerging from the research the two scientists had been doing. They'd taken great pains to assemble data on the various legends surrounding guardians and protectors, and even had some Native American texts that Magnus herself hadn't been able to find. She was reluctantly impressed with their resourcefulness, and yet silently horrified at the conclusion she was drawing from the totality of the research. Only time—and the sequencing of Will's DNA, which was currently underway—would tell if her suspicions were borne out.

She looked up to find Will hovering near the door, hands in the pockets of his jeans, looking lost.

"Will?"

"Hey, Magnus," Will said. He shuffled further into the room. "You wanted to see me?"

"I do, but it could have waited until you're feeling better," she said. She set aside the file she'd been reading and stood, stepping around her desk to the couches near the fireplace. "Please, come join me."

Will settled at the end of the couch, so Magnus took the other end. She wanted to be close enough that she could intervene if the conversation became too much for him.

"You want to know about what happened," he said quietly. "What I remember."

"Yes, I'd like to hear it," she said, "but there's no urgency, Will. Whenever you're ready."

Will shrugged. "Might as well do it now. I don't remember much about being taken, but the rest… We should talk about it while it's fresh."

"Alright," Magnus said. "You said in the infirmary that you don't remember much about being taken. What do you remember?"

"I remember a woman at the bar," Will said. He stared at the embers of the fire, as if the answers could be found in the patterns of the charred wood. "I don't remember leaving, just waking up in the warehouse. I'm pretty sure she drugged me."

"We suspect the same," Magnus said. "What security footage we could find showed you being nearly dragged out of the alley behind the bar."

"Yeah," Will said. He rubbed at the back of his neck. "When I woke up, I was tied to a chair. The woman from the bar came in and blah blah blahed for a bit—and seriously, what is with villains doing the monologue thing, anyway?"

Magnus chuckled. "They do tend to go on about their plans. Anything else?"

"She said they've been watching me, waiting for the chance to—" he took a deep breath "—to take me away from you. The way they did Ashley."

"The Cabal?" Magnus said, shocked. "You're saying they claimed to be part of the Cabal."

"Yeah, apparently they're not as dead as we'd suspected," Will said. "She said she wanted to take me away from you. Make me hers. Her—" he swallowed hard, looking away from her. "Her masterpiece."

"Good lord, Will," Magnus said. "That must have been unnerving." 

She got no answer, so she scooted closer to him on the couch, calling out to him in an attempt to gain his attention. "Will, are you alright?"

Again, he didn't answer. He was sitting, staring into the fire, his whole focus on the charred wood and glowing embers. Something inside her urged her to reach for him, to bring him back from wherever it was he'd gone.

She laid a hand on his arm, but when she got no response, she slipped her hand into his, squeezing as she leaned to whisper in his ear.

"Will," she said quietly, "it's time to come back now."

Between one breath and the next he blinked his eyes and turned to look at her, seeming surprised that she was so much closer than she'd been just a moment before.

He turned puzzled eyes on her. "Magnus?"

"Are you alright?" she asked again.

"I—yeah, I think so," he said. He frowned, eyes darting around the room. "What happened?"

"You seemed to get lost there for a moment," Magnus said. "Perhaps you just need more rest."

"Yeah, maybe," Will said. He glanced down, noticing her hand still firmly clutching his.

Magnus squeezed his once more. "Go to bed, Will. Everything will look better after a good night's rest."

"Maybe I will," he said, squeezing her hand in return. He let go and stood, turning to give her a half-smile. "Good night, Magnus."

"Good night, Will," she said, smiling at him.

She watched him shuffle out of the room, puzzled frown firmly in place. She settled back into the couch, her mind racing through possibilities as she tried to understand what had just happened.

~o~

By the next morning, Will had completely given up on rest and gone to his office. If Magnus knew, she hadn't said anything, and considering that she knew everything that went on in the Sanctuary, he had to believe she'd just bowed to the inevitable. They were all workaholics, after a fashion, but she was the worst, so more often than not, she'd simply just let them work rather than try to chase them out of the office. 

He'd been going over reports on some recent abnormal encounters before his kidnapping. There'd been a lot of sightings over the last few months, which concerned him. Magnus, too, was worried. It could mean that they'd simply stopped living in the shadows, or it could be connected to their trip to Praxis. 

Unfortunately, staring at the reported sightings wasn't giving him any insights.

He got up and wandered to the windows in his office, looking out over the grounds, letting his mind wander. He'd shied away from examining what he'd been through the last couple of days, more because he wasn't ready to contemplate what the serum the Cabal had injected him with would do to him. 

He felt fine; tired, but he wasn't surprised by that. Being kidnapped was traumatic all on its own, though maybe some of his exhaustion could be the result of whatever was in that syringe. But just thinking about it made him want to curl up in a ball under the blankets on his bed. As if hiding from the truth would somehow make it harder for that truth to find him. 

He shook his head. He'd never once refused to face the truth just because it was inconvenient. If the serum worked the way the Cabal believed it would, he would change. Into what was the question. Would he lose his humanity? Had he already lost it and just hadn't caught up to that fact?

He tilted his head as he heard a clicking sound, focusing his attention as he tried to figure out the direction it was coming from. He didn't remember ever hearing it before, and it was loud enough that he knew he wouldn’t have missed it. It was annoying as hell, mostly because it wouldn't go away. 

He wiggled his finger in his ear, hoping maybe it was just plugged, but the more he focused on it, the louder it got. Then the clicking turned into a rushing sound—loud, like the sound of a jet about to take off. He raised his hands, pressing his palms over his ears as he tried to block out the sound. He bent over double, the sound rising in pitch and volume until his head was pounding with the sound of it.

He lost all track of time as he struggled to cope with the noise. He could feel panic building in his chest, but he couldn't do anything to beat it back. His heart was racing, his breathing shallow and labored, he was at risk of a full-on meltdown, but he couldn't stop it or even slow it down.

Eventually, he became aware of warmth along his back and the sweet scent of vanilla working its way into his lungs. As his heart rate slowed, and noise level receded, he became aware of softly-spoken words and someone stroking his back.

He realized he was pressed as close as he could be to Magnus, wrapped in her arms with his nose pressed to her neck.

"—it, Will, come back to me," she said, her calm, soothing voice like a balm to his panicked soul. 

He shuddered as he pulled back a little—not far enough to leave her embrace, but far enough that he could see her. She was worried, that much was clear in the press of her lips and the crease in her brow.

"There you are," she said, smiling gently, though it did nothing to banish the worry. "Are you alright?"

"I—maybe?" he said, raising a hand to rub at his face. He found it wet with tears he didn't even remember shedding.

"What happened?"

Will shrugged. "There was a noise. I'd never heard it before, so I was trying to focus on it, find where it was coming from. It was fucking annoying, so I thought it might help me focus if I could find it and turn it off. But then… it sounded like a jet engine parked in the room. I couldn't make it stop, Magnus. I tried, but I just… couldn't."

"Hey, it's alright," Magnus said, stroking a cool hand over his cheek. "You're back now. And you're alright."

"What's happening to me?" he asked in a tortured voice.

"I don't know," she said, cupping his cheek with her hand. "But I'm going to find out. I promise you that, Will."

"Thanks," he said, flashing a brief smile. "When you say it like that, I almost believe you."

"Come on," she said. "You're shaking like a leaf. Let's get you back in bed. I'll have the Big Guy bring you some tea. Warm your body, if not your soul."

"Because tea fixes everything, right?" he asked with a lopsided grin.

"Of course," she said, winking. "Now, come, I'll even tuck you in."

Will ducked his head, feeling the heat of a hot blush steal over his cheeks. He wasn't going to say it out loud, but he was glad she'd be tucking him in. He felt safe with her in a way he'd never quite been able to express. 

~o~


	4. Chapter 4

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.  
~Stephen King

~o~

"You know, this place seems more like a crypt than a Sanctuary."

Magnus nearly jumped out of her own skin at the voice so close behind her. She turned a frown on the interloper. "Shouldn’t you be out enjoying your newly re-vamped self?"

Nikola Tesla flashed his most charming smile. "Who says I haven’t been? Can't I visit my favorite immortal from time to time for no reason at all?"

"No, you can't," Magnus said, huffing a chuckle. "But since you're here—"

"Oh, no," Nikola said, shaking his head. "I am officially on vacation. Indisposed. Incommunicado."

"Except you're clearly not if you're haunting my Sanctuary, drinking me out of house and home," Magnus said, pointing to the glass in his hand.

"No fair," Nikola said, feigning hurt as he held up the glass of crimson liquid. "This—as you well know—is my very own liquid ambrosia. You'll be happy to know that I've lost my taste for your wine cellar."

"After you emptied it, no doubt," Magnus said, shaking her head on a smile.

"What? It's supposed to be consumed."

"It's supposed to be enjoyed," Magnus said, countering his argument.

Nikola wandered over to the bank of monitors on the wall in Magnus' lab area, studying the DNA readouts she'd been displaying. He waved a hand at the screens. "What's all this? A new abnormal you've been keeping secret?"

"In a manner of speaking," Magnus said. She could explain it to him, but Nikola liked the chase for knowledge, so sometimes she let him run just to see what he'd come up with.

"Speed, strength, agility, all higher than human norms," he said, his eyes flicking through the data. "All five senses are enhanced as well. I'm guessing above average intellect and faster-than-normal healing as well. It's like whoever this is was exposed to the Source Blood. But there's none left, so how's that possible?"

He turned to spear her with his gaze, raising one fine eyebrow as he waited for her to confess. Out of all of them, Nikola was the only one that had the ability to force her to tell the truth. It was annoying—at times unnerving—but it also served to keep her from bottling things up. While she'd always appreciated James' intellect and dogged pursuit of knowledge, Nikola above them all lived in his passions, and rarely tolerated anyone wasting time he could be spending pursuing those passions. 

"Apparently, the Cabal wasn't completely destroyed, as we'd believed," she said. It tasted like failure on her tongue, a feeling she wasn't accustomed to at all.

"Well, that's interesting," Nikola said. He swung back to look at the monitors, setting his glass aside so he could get closer. "Whoever this is, their instincts are going to be ramped up. It's as though they selectively activated every base, animalistic characteristic in the subject." He turned back to Magnus. "How'd they do it?"

Magnus pressed a few buttons on her computer and pulled up a different file. "This is the formula for the serum they used on our… subject."

"Hmmm… no, I've got nothing," he said, turning back to Magnus.

"It's a CRISPR/CAS9 sequence," she said, standing up to move around the lab bench and join him near the monitors. "At its most basic, it delivers a RNA sequence that edits out a particular gene and splices in the preferred gene in its place. In this case, our subject had some of these genes already, so the CRISPR sequence just edited out the gene that was preventing that characteristic from presenting as dominant. Elegant, really, and years ahead of anything mainstream science is capable of."

"So, how's Will doing with all of these changes?" he asked, turning a grin on her.

"And how do you know it's Will?" she asked, mildly surprise that he'd figured it out without any clues. Although, she knew she shouldn't be surprised; Nikola was known for his great leaps of logic. It was what made him such a great scientific mind.

"You look like someone kicked your favorite puppy, Helen," he said. "And this whole place is on pins and needles. It's… creepy."

"My apologies," Magnus said, rolling her eyes. "I'll have my servants clear out the 'creepy' for you, shall I?"

"That would be lovely," Nikola said, smiling.

She sighed as her gaze strayed back to the data. There was something there, something that was niggling at the back of her mind. She couldn't see it, and it was frustrating her no end. Her instincts were telling her it was important, but she couldn't seem to push past the mental block. She'd been at it for hours, but she was no closer to figuring out what it was.

"Come on," Nikola said, tugging her arm as he dragged her out of the lab. "You can buy me a drink while you tell me the whole sad, sordid tale. I promise not to fall asleep while you tell it."

Magnus allowed herself to be pulled away from the lab. Staring at the data hadn't produced any concrete answers, and she was just tired enough that she knew she wouldn't make any more progress tonight. Perhaps a little rest would help her think more clearly.

~o~

"What made you think of the Source Blood?" Magnus asked as they sat on the couches in her office. 

She'd brewed some tea, though she was contemplating raiding the emergency stash of wine that Nikola hadn't—thankfully—found before he'd been returned to his former vampire self. She was worried about Will, and the picture that was forming in her mind wasn't lessening that worry. The only thing staying her hand reaching for the wine was that Will needed her clear-headed. He needed answers, and she was the only one currently able to provide those answers.

"Well, after a quick tiptoe through his DNA, it looks as though he's gotten the best of all of us," Nikola said. "My enhanced senses, your healing and longevity, James' intellect. If you tested him, I'd wager that his ability to disappear would rival Nigel, lack of camouflage notwithstanding."

Magnus raised an eyebrow. "And John?"

"Johnny's best asset—apart from the ability to teleport—was his protective streak," Nikola said. "Unless you're saying that Will's suddenly developed the ability to teleport across the room?"

"Not that I'm aware of, no," Magnus said. 

"Well, then, there you go," Nikola said with a wave of his hand. He took a sip from his glass. "This does bring up an interesting question."

"And what's that?" Magnus asked, almost afraid to hear what Nikola might consider interesting.

"Well, I know you've always said that abnormals are the future of human evolution," he said, leaning forward, his glass dangling from his fingers. "What if it's the other way around? What if humans are the abnormals?"

"What's brought this on?" Magnus asked, an eyebrow raised. 

Nikola shrugged as he leaned back into the couch once more. "For years, the Cabal's goal was to control the population, humans and abnormals alike. But this? Clearly they're trying to create a particular type of abnormal. Or, more specifically, they're trying to create a new and improved human. They've always seen abnormals as a threat to humans, so what if they're trying to level the playing field, so to speak?"

"Because, evolutionarily, humans and abnormals diverged thousands of years ago," Magnus said, picking up the thread of his thought, "and humans would have been seen as the weaker manifestation. The inferior evolutionary path. But if humans could be changed—enhanced in some way—they'd have a chance to defend themselves against the abnormals."

"Do you think they know about Praxis?" Nikola asked.

"I—" Magnus paused. Just yesterday, she'd have said no. Emphatically no. But now? "I suppose it's possible. There are others who know, chief among them Adam Worth. Although I can't see him working with the Cabal."

"Worth would hitch his wagon to anyone he thought could help him achieve his objective," Nikola said. "He was a desperate man, once upon a time. Now he's bitter and full of vengeance. Not a good combination."

"I suppose we could ask them," Magnus said.

"You mean you didn't turn them over to the authorities? Helen, I'm shocked," Nikola said, smirk firmly in place.

"We need answers," she said. When he snorted, she amended her statement. "I need answers. Turning them over to the authorities won't help Will."

Nikola got up and wandered over to the bar cart, pouring himself a bit more of his nutrient-rich drink. He wandered back to the couches, but instead of sitting down again, he passed behind her and leaned against the couch.

"Will you let me interrogate them?" he asked. When she shook her head, he leaned over, close to her ear. "At least let me watch. You know how I love watching you work."

The door swung open, nearly crashing into the wall as Will strode in, fury painted over his face. He picked up Nikola and pushed him against the wall, pressing his forearm against Nikola's neck.

Magnus was up like a shot, reaching for Will before she'd even thought through what she'd say to him.

"Well, looks like your puppy's turned into an attack dog," Nikola said, grin firmly in place.

Will pressed in closer, obviously gone non-verbal in his absolute fury. Magnus reached out and took hold of one of Will's wrists.

"Will, everything's fine," she said quietly, moving to stand beside him, pressed up against his side. "Nikola isn't a threat. I'm unharmed. You need to come back to me now."

As if a switch had been flipped, Will seemed to come back to himself, looking at Nikola and then Magnus. He stumbled back, leaning against the back of the couch, burying his face in his hands.

"I don't—what's wrong with me?" Will asked, turning confused, frightened eyes on Magnus.

"You're just doing what your instincts are telling you to do, Will," Magnus said. She pressed a cool hand to the back of his neck, pulling him to her side and settling his nose into the crook of her neck. "You're fine now, and that's what matters."

"'M sorry," he muttered, slightly muffled by the fact that his whole face was pressed to Magnus' neck. He pulled back slightly and shot a glance at Nikola. "Sorry. Don't know what came over me."

Nikola flashed a grin at him. "Think nothing of it. It'd be a slightly fairer fight now, but I think Helen would be upset with me if I even thought about defending myself."

Magnus shot him a look, but she couldn't disagree. Will was special to her. She'd failed him more than once in his life. She didn't intend to fail this time.

"Seems like we need to talk to those Cabal scientists sooner rather than later," Nikola said.

"I think you're right," Magnus said, forced to agree. 

~o~


	5. Chapter 5

Monsters just outside our peripheral vision are scarier to contemplate than monsters miles away or in someplace only a fool would set foot in.  
~Andrew Pyper

~o~

Will walked in to Henry's domain, still shaken by his aggressive display in Magnus' office. He'd never—not once—been the sort of person who started fights. Yes, he'd finished them on more than one occasion, but even while working for the police department, he'd been careful and respectful of everyone. His mother had taught him that, and he'd made it his mission to never forget that lesson—or any other lesson she'd taught him.

But there was no denying that he was changing, becoming something other than human. It was frightening, but his mind automatically shied away from examining it too closely. He needed time, and there wasn't much of that at present. 

They had to figure out what the Cabal was trying to do to him. Then he could have a nice, long freak out.

"Hey, Henry," Will said.

"Oh, hey," Henry said, looking up from the tangle of wires and other paraphernalia he'd been bent over. "I meant to come by before now. See how you're doing. Y'know, with the whole… thing."

Henry winced a little as his sentence petered out, but Will just smiled. "S'okay. I'm kinda glad you didn't. I don't—"

"Really want everyone asking how you're doing when you're clearly just trying to ignore the whole thing," Henry finished for him.

"It's like you read my mind," Will said, comfortable joking about it because that still wasn't dealing with it.

"I'm sure you know this already, but I get what you're going through," Henry said, all joking gone from his tone. "If you ever feel like talking. Or, you know, not talking. I'm your guy."

"Thanks," Will said. He'd known, instinctively, that Henry would be able to understand better than almost anyone at the Sanctuary, considering his transition—for lack of a better term—was still so recent. But it was still nice to hear that he had someone he could lean on if needs be.

"Ah, good, you're both here," Magnus said as she swept into the lab, Tesla on her heels.

He still felt bad about what had happened, and he still didn't understand why it had happened, so he felt like, discretion being the better part of valor, the best place for him to stand was on Henry's other side, as far away as he could get from Tesla and not make it look like he was avoiding the man. Tesla's smirk said he knew exactly what Will was up to, but wasn't going to hold it against him.

Fuck his life.

"So, what have you got, Wolf Boy?"

Henry sent an annoyed frown Tesla's way, but didn't rise to the bait. No doubt in an effort to annoy Tesla. Will would applaud his effort if it looked at all like Tesla was annoyed. Instead he was directing a knowing smirk Henry's way.

"I was finally able to decrypt the laptops they were using," Henry said. He lifted one off the workbench and handed it over to Magnus. "Formulas, research notes. A complete proposal on what they were trying to achieve, based on what the serum was expected to do. Your standard super-villain toolkit."

"I'll take that," Tesla said, the smirk on his face lighting up into genuine glee. 

"Don't go too far with that, Nikola," Magnus said. 

"Oh, don't worry," Henry said. He picked up a flash drive and handed it to her. "I copied all the files, just in case Sparky here manages to wipe the laptop."

"Hey!" Tesla said, pretending outrage at the nickname, but Will could see the secret glee at getting to spar with someone riding just under the surface.

Magnus simply rolled her eyes at their antics. Will shared a not-so-subtle fist-bump with Henry.

"Anything else?" Magnus asked.

"Names and resumes for our guests," Henry said, handing over a file. He tapped a few commands on the nearest keyboard, and his monitors lit up with two dossiers. "On your left is Kieran Forsythe, PhD. She did her undergrad work at the U of Toronto, graduate and post-doc at MIT. Worked for SciGen for about six years before she fell off the grid. She published a couple of papers, but her theories were widely panned. From what I can gather in the chat rooms I lurked in, she's not exactly well-loved in the scientific community."

"Well, well, well," Nikola said, smirk reforming on his face. "Seems our dear Kieran was a big fan of yours, Helen."

Words started jumping off the page from some of the posts Kieran had made on various boards. Mutation. Abnormal. Evolutionary shift. She'd been shouted down every time by scientists who had no time for 'science fiction'.

"They'd probably be shocked if they knew even half of what we know," Will said. "So, she's got a long-standing interest—" he was met with three sets of raised eyebrows; he huffed a laugh and amended his statement. "Okay, she's got a long-standing obsession with abnormal biology and genetics. From the look of these posts, she didn't carry any particular animosity towards abnormals, just garden variety curiosity. Nothing here raises a red flag to me. How'd she go from curiosity and scientific interest to super-villainy?"

"The Cabal are insidious," Magnus said. "They'd have approached her with validation of her theories, told her that she's not alone in her suspicions. Given her access to a wider world she's only dreamed existed until now."

"And then, they'd have started in with their theories," Tesla said. "You know how these people are: abnormals are a danger to society. They'll alter the evolutionary path of humans. We have to counteract that, for the good of the human race."

"When you put it like that, it almost sounds… altruistic," Will said. "Any chance we can flip her? Use her to track back to their leadership?"

"I doubt it," Henry said. "I've been looking at her internet activity. She's made no contact with anyone outside her little shop of horrors since this laptop went online. Same with all the cell phones. Hell, I even hacked the phone company to see if anyone had use a landline in that building, for any reason. I got exactly nothing."

"So, who's the other guy?" Will asked.

"His name's Thomas Horton," Henry said. "From what I can tell, he's a lab technician. Not a very good one, either. He's worked for no less than five different companies in the last 18 months, and he's been fired from three of them."

"Hired help?" Will asked. "Someone to do the dirty work while she did the real research?"

"Looks like," Henry said. "He's being paid handsomely for basically cleaning the petri dishes and logging the test results. And before you ask, I'm still trying to track where the payments are coming from."

"So, they've given her everything she needs to complete her task, including a lackey," Tesla said. "Doesn't make sense that they'd turn her loose without a way for her to let them know when it worked. Or a way to monitor her progress."

"Henry, I want you and Kate to search that warehouse top to bottom," Magnus said. "Look for—"

"Anomalous signals, bugs, cameras, etcetera, etcetera," Henry said, picking up on what she was thinking. "I’m on it. I'll let you know what I find."

"Good work, Henry," Magnus said, smiling as she patted his arm.

If Henry noticed, he didn't show it, already focused on planning his next mission. The three of them left the lab and paused in the hall.

"You really think he'll find something?" Will asked.

"I think it's highly unlikely they've simply given Dr. Forsythe the tools to complete her project and then left her to it," Magnus said.

"She's a convert, not a true believer," Tesla said. "They'd have to monitor her, just in case she grew a conscience. Experiments in a lab are one thing; human experimentation is something else entirely."

"So, now what?" Will asked.

"Now, we pay our guests a visit," Magnus said.

~o~

This time, Will followed Magnus and Tesla into the room, seeing the woman from his kidnapping—Dr. Forsythe, he now knew—sitting in a cell in the SHU. She smirked at them, but her eyes lit up when she spotted Will. 

He groaned internally as he leaned against the wall some distance from the cell. Why did he always attract the wrong kind of attention?

"I hope you don't think you can keep me here forever, Dr. Magnus," Forsythe said, arching an eyebrow at his boss. "I'm bound to be missed, and then how will you explain?"

"If you'd been missed, someone would have come for you by now," Magnus said. "As it stands, I believe your employers have determined you to be a total loss and moved on. Sorry."

Forsythe shrugged. "It was worth it for the research I've done. Besides, once I get out of here, I'll just start over someplace else. This research is far too important to give up on, which you'd realize if you've read any of my notes."

"Oh look," Tesla said, sneering at the woman. "It's adorable how she thinks she's getting out of here."

"You're not going to kill me," Forsythe said, smirking in Tesla's direction. "If you'd wanted me dead, you'd have done it at the warehouse. No, you want answers. If you play your cards right, I might be inclined to give them to you. You could start by letting me out of this cell. It's… damp in here. Bad for my sinuses."

"I think we'll keep you right here," Magnus said. "After all, you've sung my praises to the skies. I should think you'd relish any chance to have a conversation with me, regardless of venue."

"Touché," Forsythe said. She settled back into her chair as she looked at Will. "Has he started to change yet? I'll bet he has. Must be frightening, not knowing what's happening. I could help, you know. A few minutes alone with me and you'd be right as rain."

"Why you?" Tesla asked. "I mean, what's so special about you?"

"It's coded into the serum," Forsythe said, a serene smile on her face. "Coded into his DNA by now. He'll respond to me, and only to me. The rest of you have no hope of controlling what he'll become. I'm the only one that can."

"Why were you trying to create a Sentinel?" Magnus asked.

Forsythe smirked, as though she were reluctantly impressed with Magnus, but all Will could do was stare at his mentor. What did that even mean, and why did it resonate in him in a way that was both frightening and reassuring at the same time?

"Ah, so you have figured it out," Forsythe said. "Bravo, Helen. Of course, I expected no less."

"You notice how she hasn't answered the question?" Tesla said to Will, sotto voce. 

Will snorted. "You know how super villains like to draw these things out. They want us all to bask in their genius."

"I'm surprised you're so calm about all this, Will," Forsythe said. "I'm not sure I'd be nearly this calm if I were faced with being altered so fundamentally."

"Eh," Will said, shrugging as he affected an air of casual indifference. It was the farthest thing from what he was feeling, but he didn't want to let her see him freak out. Plus, Magnus seemed to know what was going on. That had always been enough for him. "I figure you can't do a whole lot to me from in there. Besides, I work with abnormals on a daily basis. You've got nothing that'll scare me."

"I see," Forsythe said, but if his attitude bothered her at all, she didn't show it. Instead, she turned to Magnus, something like mutual respect turning her from an arrogant villain into the scientist she was supposed to be. "As for your question, Helen, I've given him a gift. There's no going back to a world before abnormals, so we humans need something to balance the equation, so to speak."

"How did you learn of the Sentinels?" Magnus asked. "How did you find the right genes? The right sequence?"

"The same way you did," Forsythe said. "Research. Tireless, endless research. The clues are all there in writing. Hundreds of thousands of stories—mostly anecdotal, mind you—of humans with sharper senses and stronger bodies." She leaned forward, looking directly at Will. "Protectors. Defenders. The legacy of a millennia of evolution, all now made manifest in you. You—and others like you—will be our greatest achievement. Our last line of defense against the oncoming hoard."

"Good god," Tesla said, rolling his eyes. "Stop with the melodramatics already. It's starting to bore me."

Forsythe smirked. "At some point, you're going to realize that you've lost control of your protégé. He'll seek me out. He's been genetically pre-programmed to choose me. You have no hope of keeping him. And when he does, we'll walk out of here, and we'll find a new place to start over. I'll create more just like him. And we'll finally be safe. Safe from the monsters."

Forsythe held out her hand, beckoning Will forward. She had an expectant look on her face, as if Will crossing the room to her side was a foregone conclusion. But instead of feeling an overwhelming urge to run to her, he only felt disgust. Whatever she'd done—whatever she'd tried to do—had failed spectacularly. He might be a Sentinel, or he might not be. But he was most definitely not her pet or her slave.

Will pushed off the wall and moved toward the cell, but instead of walking right up to it as Forsythe clearly expected—if the look of triumph on her face was any indication—he stopped beside Magnus and took the hand she offered.

Forsythe's face fell as she looked between them, shock and anger building. "No! That's not possible! It's me! It has to be me! I'm the only one, Will. The only one."

She jumped out of her chair, pressing against the bars of the cell with her arm outstretched, reaching for him as if merely touching him would change anything. Will simply shook his head.

"You've lost, Dr. Forsythe," Magnus said. "Will is—and has always been—mine. You and your friends in the Cabal would do well to remember that."

With that, Magnus turned and stalked out, Will trailing behind her, his hand still clasped in hers. He heard Tesla approach the cell to leave Forsythe with a few well-placed words.

"That's the second time the Cabal has gone up against Helen Magnus and lost," he said. "You—and they—would do well to remember that the next time you have an idea for world domination."

~o~

Magnus stopped just outside the SHU, just barely keeping herself from shaking to pieces. She'd known there was something she was missing; something that Forsythe had hidden in the serum that she just wasn't seeing. Now she knew what it was.

"Magnus, what is it?" Will asked, stepping in close. "What aren't you telling me?"

"I—" she looked at Will, so trusting, on the verge of flying apart from the stress of the changes brought on by Forsythe's research, but calmly waiting for her to make it all better. She took a deep breath, calming her heart and replacing the fury on her face with quiet reassurance. "I need to check on something, confirm it. Then I'll come find you and explain. Can you wait that long?"

Will sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, I can wait. Just—don't take too long, okay? After listening to her blah blah blah, I think I have an idea of what's going on. But I want to hear it from you."

"I understand," Magnus said. She laid a hand on his cheek, taking comfort as much as giving it. "I shan't be long."

Will nodded and walked away as Nikola rejoined her. "So, what is it you need to verify? You've realized something, haven't you? Something big that has you as freaked out as you've ever been."

"Yes," she said, glancing at him. "Something major. But I need to look at the serum and Will's DNA again to be sure."

"Then let's go," Nikola said, extending a hand to indicate that she should precede him. 

She'd roll her eyes at how obvious he was being if she wasn't secretly glad her old friend wasn't letting her hide. Instead, she simply turned and headed for her lab, knowing he'd follow her. Curiosity would drive him forward, if nothing else.

It took them barely five minutes to reach her lab, and another few for her to locate the files she needed. She put them up on the monitors, then crossed the room and stood in front of them, arms crossed as her eyes flicked over the data.

"So, what are we looking for?" Nikola asked as he stood beside her, mirroring her posture.

"That," she said, pointing to one line of the formula.

"And what is 'that', may I ask?" 

"Something Forsythe said got me thinking," Magnus said. "She was talking about a genetic trigger, some string of DNA or maybe even a single gene that would somehow bind Will to her. All the Sentinel legends I read suggested that they have a partner, someone who could keep them grounded and help them use their senses without getting lost in them. That person was called various things by various cultures, but more often than not they were called Guide."

"And you think she was going to use this gene as a—what? An activator of some sort?" Nikola asked. "To what end?"

"There's been a lot of speculation regarding what made Sentinels so effective," Magnus said. "They've always been primal beings, highly protective of their tribe, focused and committed to a common goal. Some scholars believe that the Guide wasn't only meant to help the Sentinel control and use his senses, but also to tie the Sentinel to the tribe."

"Give him a reason to protect them?" Nikola asked. "Okay, say I buy that. How did she know it would work? And why that gene and not any of a hundred others?"

"Remember when you said it looked like he'd been exposed to the Source Blood?" Magnus asked. When she got a nod, she continued. "I took a closer look at the genes she used. They weren't randomly chosen, and all the versions she used were clustered together, as if they were meant to be activated together. Including this one."

"So, not just a random choice on her part," Nikola said. "What else?"

"I have that same gene."

Nikola stood staring at her for a few heartbeats. He looked just as surprised as she'd been when she realized what had happened, but it explained so much.

"So, that means that you're a Guide?" Nikola asked. "Will's Guide, presumably."

"Yes," Magnus said, "I believe so."

"And Forsythe was hoping to force Will to recognize her as a Guide—his Guide—which is why she included the gene in the serum. So she could control him."

"Seems as though that was the plan," Magnus said. She let out a sigh. "How am I supposed to tell him this? Any of it? I don't want to control him—I've never wanted him to be anything less than who and what he is, but this? This could destroy him, Nikola."

"Helen," he said, laying a hand on her arm. "You know how much I loathe sentimentality, but even I know that Will has always and only ever been about you. He quit his job, moved into the Sanctuary and took on your cause, all because of you. He's already yours, but has he ever been anything less than his own man, even still? You're not taking anything away from him by giving him the truth. You're giving him the power to make his own choices, as you've always done."

"Perhaps," Magnus said, hazarding a small smile. 

"Now, go tell him what he needs to know," Nikola said, patting her arm before he let go.

Magnus smiled at him, then turned and left the room.

~o~


	6. Chapter 6

There's monsters in all of us, but there's also vulnerability.  
~Finn Wittrock

~o~

The knock on the door came a lot sooner than Will expected. He was standing by the windows, looking out on a world that he thought he'd known, but was now fresh and new. Every time he looked at something, listened to something, touched something, it was like he was experiencing it for the first time.

New details had started jumping out at him almost as soon as he'd woken up after his kidnapping ordeal. Subtle nuances that he'd never noticed before suddenly became all he could see, taste, touch. It had only taken a day for the serum to change him, but he already knew there was no going back. 

And for as much as he wanted Magnus to tell him what was going on, to tell him that everything would work out, he dreaded hearing what she had to say.

The knock sounded again, and he knew that meant he'd run out of time. He had to face this, whether he was ready or not. 

"Come in," he called out, realizing that for as much as he wanted to know what was happening to him, he couldn't be the one to open that door.

Magnus opened the door and stepped inside, quietly closing it behind her. She took a few steps inside, no doubt curious as to why he was holed up in his office and not his room. He couldn't say why, exactly, except this was the room he spent so much of his time in, maybe more in this room than in any other in the Sanctuary. That made it as much a safe space to him as any other place in the Sanctuary.

"Are you alright, Will?" Magnus asked.

He chuckled, but it was entirely without humor. "No, I think I'm the very definition of 'not okay', but since nobody asked me if I wanted any of this, I'm just going to have to cope, aren't I?"

"I'm sorry," she said, sighing. "I wish that we'd been able to reach you sooner, so that all of this could have been prevented."

"It's not your fault," he said. He shook his head. He couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice if he tried. He only hoped Magnus understood. "The only person to blame in this whole situation is Forsythe, and she's clearly crazy, so I doubt she's going to own up to her guilt anytime soon."

"I—" Magnus sighed. "Should I come back later? I don't want to—"

"No," Will said, cutting her off more sharply than he'd intended. "Sorry. I just—I meant what I said. I need to know what's going on. I don't want to know, but I need to know. So just hit me with it. I can take it."

"Alright. If you're certain," Magnus said. "Come sit down, and I'll try to explain."

Will shuffled across the room, taking a seat on the couch instead of sitting down behind his desk like he wanted to. He'd feel safer, sitting in the 'power seat', but he didn't think that wouldn’t serve him for this conversation. He watched Magnus settle in beside him and just waited for her to speak.

"Dr. Forsythe was attempting to recreate something called a Sentinel," she said. 

"I heard you say that to Forsythe," he said. "I've never even heard of Sentinels before. Is it some kind of abnormal?"

"No, Sentinels are entirely human," Magnus said. She leaned back into the couch and watched him carefully as she spoke. "They're enhanced humans. Super humans, if you will. They have five enhanced senses; strength, speed and agility all well above human norms. They heal faster, are more intelligent than the average human, and can operate instinctually in ways that mere humans can't."

"Oh, terrific," Will said. "That sounds more like Superman than a human being. Am I supposed to wear tights and a cape under my clothes now?"

"Will," Magnus admonished him, but he wasn't going to apologize for his snark. "Sentinels are protectors. They possess the skills and abilities to protect their tribe. History shows that in times of great turbulence, the Sentinels have emerged as a line of defense against whatever dangers the human race is facing."

"So, what I am—what I'm becoming—can help protect people?" Will asked her. He heard the glimmer of a silver lining in there somewhere, and he was desperate for something that would make this whole shit show worthwhile, so if it was anything he could use to help her or the Sanctuary, he'd take it, difficult or not. "I could use this to help protect the Sanctuary?"

"Insofar as we are your chosen tribe, yes I believe so," she confirmed.

"But…?" 

"Pardon?"

"There's always a 'but'," Will said. "I feel like maybe there's a really big 'but' coming."

Magnus winced. "It's far too easy for you to get lost in a single sense, as I'm certain you've realized. Your hearing, your sight. I've not noticed any other episodes, but from what I understand, those two are the easiest to zone on, as the research calls it."

"Great," Will said. "So, I could be sitting at my desk and get lost looking at the woodgrain of my desk? How am I supposed to help people if I'm so fragile that I can't be left alone for fear I'll get lost in my senses?"

"Fortunately, nature has provided help for that particular problem," Magnus said. "Sentinels have always had a partner—someone called a Guide—to help keep their senses balanced and prevent them from getting lost in a zone."

Will flopped back onto the couch, letting out a heavy sigh. "So now I need a babysitter? Where am I supposed to find this Guide, anyway? It's not like I can just put an ad in the local paper."

"Dr. Forsythe keyed the Guide gene to herself, but she failed to realize that there were others who could potentially carry the gene," Magnus said quietly.

Will looked up, staring at her. His instincts were screaming Guide at him, as though the Sentinel inside him already knew who his Guide was. He wasn't sure how he felt about the possibility of Magnus being his Guide. He wasn't even sure he liked the idea of having a Guide, much less that Guide being his boss and mentor. 

But, if it had to be someone, he'd rather it be someone he trusted. He just wasn't sure he was ready to accept that it had to be anyone at all.

"I know this is a lot to take in, Will," she said when he didn't react. "It'll take some time, but I think we can overcome any difficulties. We've never had a problem working together. I feel that this situation will be little different."

"You know, after the whole I-almost-turned-into-a-lizard thing, I thought that if it ever happened again that I'd manage," he said quietly, laying his head back against the back of the couch. "I mean, I work around abnormals. I treat abnormals. Some of my best friends are abnormals. So, when it happened to me, I thought—after it was all over, and I was back to myself, I thought, 'it isn't so bad; I could cope with being an abnormal'."

"But actually being faced with the reality that there's no going back is different," she said. A sweet, sad smile drifted over her face as she reached out and squeezed his hand. He felt himself unclench, and he hated that she had that kind of power over him. "Believe it or not, I do understand. This is a lot to take in. Take whatever time you need, Will. I'll be here when you're ready to talk."

With that, she stood and walked to the door. She pulled it open and took one last look at him, still slouching on the couch, staring at the ceiling though he could see her in his peripheral vision. Sending one more sad smile his way, she stepped through the door and closed it behind him.

The click of the door closing sounded like a gunshot in the suddenly quiet room. Will rubbed at his face. What the fuck was he supposed to do with any of this?

~o~

Will closed his eyes as the flavor of the ice cream burst over his tongue. The sweetness of the vanilla combined with the silky richness of the chocolate fudge as it rolled over his tongue. If he concentrated, he could feel the shards of ice that the ice cream was made of as they skated over his tongue.

A hard slap to the back of his head forced his eyes open. He rubbed the back of his head as he watched Kate wander over to the cabinet and pull out a bowl and spoon.

"What was that for?"

"You're hiding in the kitchen, so you must have done something," she said as she served herself some ice cream. "Plus, you're going to zone on that ice cream, and I'm not explaining that to Magnus."

"I am not—wait, how did you know about the zoning thing?" Will asked.

"Duh, the way the food tasted the other day," Kate said. "Plus, you've been having trouble with your hearing, and your clothes. I noticed you wearing the oldest, rattiest things you own."

"And that all adds up to Sentinels?" he asked. "How do you even know about that?"

"I was a smuggler once upon a time," she said, shrugging. "I heard things. You're not the first Sentinel, and you probably won't be the last, if it makes you feel any better."

Will sighed. "It doesn't, but thanks."

"It's not the end of the world, Will," she said. "There's so much you can do now that you couldn't before. I'd have thought you'd be excited about that."

"Yeah, and I need a minder to make sure I don't get so lost I can't come back," he shot back. "Doesn't sound all that great to me."

"Oh, poor baby," Kate said, shaking her head. "It must really suck to be you. Great job, great friends, great house. Fantastic senses and faster than normal healing. Really, you have it rough, Will."

Will hung his head, dropping his spoon in the empty bowl as he flopped back in his chair. When she put it like that, what he had going on wasn't so much, all things considered. Still…

"Would you mind?" he asked, looking up with one eyebrow raised. He knew she'd been more of a loner, before she'd connected with Magnus and the Sanctuary. He doubted she'd be so excited to have to deal with everything he currently had on his plate. 

"You mean, would I mind needing to have a Guide just to do my job?" At Will's nod, she cocked her head to consider. "Yes, I'd mind. But there's a lot I would put up with if it meant I didn't have to go back to the life I used to live."

"Sorry," Will muttered. "It's just… I don't know what to do with all this. Does it mean that I can't ever be alone? Do I have to always be on my guard? Will I ever feel like I've got control of my life again?"

"Well, I can't speak to all of that," Kate said, "because I've never actually met another Sentinel. But the Sentinels I've heard of lived pretty normal lives, all things considered. I mean, yeah, they had a Guide that helped them use their senses, but in day-to-day living, they were pretty independent."

"That doesn't sound so bad," he said.

"From what I know, as long as your senses are balanced, you don't need 24/7 babysitting," she said. "Because that would truly suck." She paused, flicking a glance at him. "Plus, can you really say that you depend on Magnus less now than you ever have? I mean, come on, you two are practically joined at the hip now. How is this any different?"

"You may have a point," Will said. 

He looked up at the ceiling, contemplating the whole mess. He hadn't asked for any of this, but it was his to deal with now. And at least having Magnus to lean on made the whole thing less scary somehow, even knowing that she was learning about it at the same time he was.

"Besides," Kate said as she crossed the kitchen to put her bowl and spoon in the sink. She turned and leaned against the counter. "Can you honestly tell me that there's someone in your life that you trust more than Magnus?"

Will sighed. She was probably right about that, too, which meant he probably owed Magnus an apology for behaving like a child earlier.

Kate crossed the room and slapped him upside the head, albeit much more gently than she had when she'd first arrived. She followed that up with a glancing peck to the top of his head.

"Just—Magnus trusts you," she said quietly, pressed to his back so he couldn't see her face. "And you trust her. Don't let this be the thing that breaks that. It won't serve you or the Sanctuary. Or Magnus. She's earned your trust for a reason. Don't forget that."

And then she was gone, leaving Will with plenty to think about.

~o~

It was late, well past midnight, by the time Will had settled his mind about the whole Sentinel and Guide thing. He still wasn't sure he liked the idea of depending on someone so much, but he also realized that he already depended on Magnus for pretty much everything. She was his true north, and that meant something. 

So, he'd gone to her office, but found it empty. Ditto for her lab and the roof. It was odd for her to not be working, considering how little she slept, but he'd finally found himself standing outside her bedroom door, the only place he figured she could be.

He knocked, and only seconds later heard the quiet 'come in'. He turned the knob and stepped inside, finding her curled up under a blanket on her chaise near the fire. He leaned on the doorjamb, just looking his fill.

She looked elegant, curled up under the brown, faux fur blanket, with her hair falling in soft waves around her shoulders. Her eyes sparkled in the firelight, and there was a book resting on her lap, pages worn and dogeared from many years of use. Like this, he could well imagine her in her Victorian youth, defying all expectations for a woman of her station. 

"I think I owe you an apology," he said as he pushed off the doorjamb. He walked across the room, pausing near the fireplace, closer but still not as close as he wanted to be. "I was… I took my anger and frustration out on you, and that wasn't fair."

"Oh, Will," she said, closing the book and setting it on the small table beside her chaise. "You need never apologize to me. This is a lot to take in, I know."

"Yeah, but that still doesn't mean I get to take it out on you," he said.

"Come here," she said, holding out her hand. 

Slowly, as if he were approaching a grenade with the pin removed, he closed the distance between them. She patted the chaise beside her, so he took the hint and sat down, pressing his hip into her leg. She reached out and took his hand, enfolding it in both of hers.

"Will," she began, her eyes sparkling and brimming with… something he couldn't define. Something his mind skittered away from. "I have known you for a long time. You are normally a pillar of strength, but this has well and truly shaken your world. There's no shame in asking for help when you need it."

"I know," he said, sighing. "It's just… this is all so new for me. I hate that I don't even understand what's happening to me. I mean, usually there's a book or some research materials, or something. I'm at sea with this, and it's frustrating."

Magnus sighed. "I'm partly to blame for that. I have the research materials that Dr. Forsythe collected, plus I have my own research. I have materials that I had catalogued but hadn't reviewed that are relevant to this situation. I'll collect all of it so you can read it at your leisure. It might help alleviate some of your anxiety over the situation."

"Thanks," he said. He scooted up a little, getting closer to her. "I think that'd help. I don't mean to be a pain, but—"

"Think nothing of it, Will," she said, cutting him off before he could apologize again. 

"So, is there anything else I need to be aware of?"

"Well, we've covered the basics," she said, tilting her head. "I think the most relevant thing right now is that you be aware of your surroundings, and not focus one sense on an objective unless there's someone else in the room. It need not be me; as long as there's someone to hand, they should be able to bring you out of a zone. I think it's important to let the others know what's happened, so that if they're called upon to bring you out of a zone and can't, they know to come to me."

"Sounds reasonable," he said as he scooted still further up the chair. It felt almost like there was an invisible string pulling him in, though Magnus seemed wholly unaware of it. "I think… I need to…"

He felt himself leaning in, taking a deep breath as he pulled her scent into his lungs. "Why do you always smell so good?" he muttered.

Magnus chuckled. "I'd say it has something to do with the French perfume I favor, but I'm not wearing it at present. Besides, I doubt that's what you're referring to."

Will settled his hands on the chaise on either side of her shoulders and pressed his nose into her neck, breathing deeply again. Something inside him pushed, just a little, so he stuck his tongue out and licked, processing the taste of her skin as his tongue darted out for another taste.

And then just as suddenly, he was up and across the room, rubbing a hand over his face as he realized exactly what he'd been doing.

"Magnus, I'm so sorry," he said, pained by his own actions. "I don't know what's wrong with me. I just…"

Magnus tossed the blanket aside and got up, crossing the room on quick feet. Without her customary high heels, she was shorter than him, something that made the primal side of him growl in satisfaction. He tried—and mostly failed—to shut it up.

"It's okay, Will," she said, laying a cool hand on his cheek. "your instincts are telling you that you need to imprint on me. You're supposed to be doing this. You've not harmed me, and you're not going to. Just follow your instincts; if you fight them, you'll only cause yourself harm."

"And you're okay with that?" he asked. "I mean, I don't know how far this'll go. What if—"

"There is nothing you can do that I won't want you to do," she said, smiling at him. "Or that I won't thoroughly enjoy."

"Just how far does this imprint thing have to go?" Will asked, almost afraid to hear the answer at the same time he kind of already knew just how far it'd go.

"As far as you need it to," she said.

"But I thought—" he started, then shut his mouth, biting down on his lips to stop himself from saying something he shouldn't. Her encouraging nod made him open his mouth and say what he really wanted to say. "I know Druitt is—well, he's the love of your life. I also know there have been others, and that you don't do serious. But I kinda feel like this is going to be serious. And lasting. So, if you're not up for either, tell me now."

"You're right that I've loved John for a long time," she said quietly. "He's been… well, he's been a constant in my life for so long that I hardly know who or what I'd be without him in it. But he's also not the man I fell in love with all those years ago. He can't be that man as long as he's hosting that… abnormal. And I've come to terms with that." 

She took a deep breath. "But you… you've been part of my life for a long time. Not, perhaps, as long as John, but most of your life. I've known you were special to me for that long and probably longer. It's true that I haven't had a serious romantic entanglement for some time, but that's mostly because I've had to say goodbye to far too many lovers in my long life. But you, Will, you'll live a long life. Much longer than the average human. Perhaps longer than many abnormals. We've no way of knowing just how long but—"

"But you won't have to say goodbye to me like you have so many others," Will finished for her. "God, how hard has it been for you? To know that you'll outlive everyone around you?"

"Well, not everyone," she said, smiling gently. "For as much as you see this as a plague on your life, I can't help but be thankful that this has happened to you. It means I won't have to let you go as I have so many others."

"Magnus," Will said with a pained sigh. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because that was my particular cross to bear," she said. "And not to be rude, but it wasn't something you or the others could really understand. I have no idea how long I'll live, Will. Given that, I chose not to burden you with that knowledge."

"And now you have me," he said, smiling. "I can't promise to live forever, but I think I'll be around for a good long time."

"Something for which I am eternally grateful," she said. "Now, you'll doubtless want to do a full imprint on me. Shall we take this someplace more comfortable?"

Will blushed. "If you'd like. I have no idea what's involved in a full imprint, but I'm game if you are."

"Then come," Magnus said, taking his hand and tugging him toward her bedroom. "We'll walk this path together."

Will's heart stuttered at the smile she sent his way; one part sultry and two parts predatory. He wasn't sure he'd survive the night, but what a way to go.

~o~


	7. Chapter 7

Monsters aren't as scary if you start shining lights on them.  
~Wyatt Cenac

~o~

Magnus pulled Will through her sitting room and into the Inner Sanctum of the Sanctuary, as Henry had jokingly called it once. It was, to own the truth, the one place in all of the Sanctuary that no one entered. It was her oasis from the stress and problems of the day, but tonight she was sharing it with someone else.

Not for the first time, because John had been in this room many times in the past, though she didn't like to think about that for the hurt it inevitably caused. Besides, if tonight went the way she expected, thoughts of John would be entirely out of place.

She paused by the fireplace to stoke the logs, adding another so that the blaze crackled merrily in the hearth. It wouldn't do for either of them to catch a chill this evening. She turned to find Will standing beside the bed, hands in the pockets of his jeans, staring at it as if it were a coiled snake, preparing to attack.

Magnus crossed the room and laid her hand on his shoulder, pressing her body into his as she peered around him. "It really is just a bed. Same as yours, matter of fact."

"Hardly," Will said, shaking his head. He turned and faced her, placing his hands on her shoulders, his fingers toying with the loose strands of her hair where they skated along the tops of her shoulders. "It's your bed, which makes it a whole other level of crazy. I'm standing next to your bed, and I have no idea how I even got here."

"We walked," she said, "from my sitting room. One foot in front of the other."

"Ha, ha," he said. He shook his head. "I just—I have so many thoughts spinning around in my head right now. I don't—this is going to change us. Change how we relate to each other. I don't… want to lose you, Magnus, and I'm afraid that if I take that final step and you're not there with me, that I will. And I couldn't cope with that, on top of everything else. I just… can't."

Magnus laid a finger over his lips, stemming the tide of words. "You won't ever have to face this world without me by your side, Will. I can promise you that. I know this is scary, but there's something… inevitable about it. As if this is where we've been headed all this time. I'm not sure I can explain it, even to myself, except to say that this feels right in a way nothing has in all my long years. Do you understand?"

"I think so," he said. He took a deep breath, skimming his hand down her arm until it clasped hers. "So, wanna take a leap off a cliff with me?"

"I'd love to," she said, smiling. 

She squeezed his hand, then let go and stepped back. One by one, she shed her clothes. Soft sweater, leggings, thick socks, until she was standing only in her bra and panties. She saw his eyes dilate and his nostrils flare as he took in the sight and smell of her. She was filled with an unreasonable pride at the predatory look in his eyes. It had been so long since someone had looked at her with that hungry gaze, but it felt good that it was Will doing it now.

Slowly, she pulled back the covers and climbed onto the bed, stretching out and raising a hand to beckon him to join her. 

Will shed his clothing with much less aplomb that she had and practically leaped onto the bed with her. She stifled a laugh at his eagerness, though she was glad to see the doubts from a few minutes ago put to rest.

Will settled over her, resting much of his weight on her as he pressed his nose into her neck, breathing deeply. She wrapped her arms and one leg around him, pulling him as close as she could get him.

"What do you smell?" she asked quietly. "When you scent me, what do I smell like to you?"

"You smell like night-blooming Jasmine. Like the air just before a lightning strike," he practically whispered. "Like home. You smell like home."

"Good," she said, hiding her own smile in his neck.

Will pulled back and settled on his knees, his eyes roaming her face, tracking down her neck and over her torso. Magnus had never been body-shy, not even in the Victorian era when such things as this were done in the dark to preserve modesty. There had always been something empowering in being able to see the effect her form had on the men she'd been with. 

Women had always been seen as the weaker sex, but she'd learned long ago that there was nothing weak about a woman in full possession of her youth and vigor. She had the power to reduce men to their most base selves, just with a look. There was nothing quite so powerful as that, in her opinion.

Looking at Will, she could see beginnings of the power he would one day wield as a Sentinel, coiled and focused on one objective: her. It was exhilarating, something she hadn't felt in a very long time.

He reached out and calmly removed her bra and panties, not asking permission, just doing what needed to be done. His eyes never stopped roving over her form, taking in every blemish and scar. She'd lived a long life, and had her fair share and then some, but she'd long ago accepted it as part of the life she'd chosen. Now, Will would know that as well.

When he'd looked his fill, he leaned over and ran his nose up her torso, over her ribs, just barely skimming the underside of her breast as he rested his weight on the hands pressed to the mattress on either side of her body. He followed with his tongue, tasting the skin, cataloging the differences in scent, taste and texture. The experience was like none she'd ever been through before, and yet still the most sensual—the most sexual—encounter of her life.

He continued his path of exploration, his hands now following in the wake of his other senses, learning her body as well as she knew it herself. When he'd reached her sex, he paused and inhaled deeply before his tongue delved in and tasted her at her core. He wasn't trying to excite her, but she found herself wet just at the thought of him touching her in the most intimate of places.

He didn't linger; once he'd committed her smell and taste to memory, he moved on. When he'd completed his tour of her front, he nudged her over and repeated the process over her back and legs. He took his time, and far from being chilled, his careful inspection warmed her from the inside out. 

When he'd finally catalogued ever last inch of skin, he settled beside her, skimming his fingers over her back. The touch wasn't meant to excite, but she couldn't say she wasn't extremely turned on by his earlier explorations. She turned to look at him, pillowing her head on crossed arms.

"You alright?" she asked.

"Mmmm." He was distracted, his eyes following his hand as it continued to stroke the skin of her back, fingers dancing over the knobs of her spine one by one. "Yeah, I'm good."

"But?"

"But what?"

"I sense a 'but' coming," she said, mimicking his earlier words. "If there's more you need, please don't feel like you can't say. I don't want you holding back from me. This is a partnership, Will."

"I feel like… I feel like I need to claim you somehow," he said with a wince. "Which honestly freaks me out. Not to mention, it makes me sound like a caveman."

Magnus rolled over. "Then do what you need to."

~o~

Will closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He couldn't believe she was being so… he didn't want to say cavalier, because Helen Magnus was never that. But accepting of something so beyond her control? Yeah, that he couldn't see. And yet, she'd all but offered her body to him—offered to have sex with him, because that was what he was asking for, although not in so many words.

But instead of belaboring the point, he simply reached for her, sliding his hand over her belly, wrapping it around her back and pulling her to him. He pressed his lips to hers, but instead of the freak-out he expected at kissing his boss, it felt right. Good.

He pressed closer, molding her body to his as he tasted her mouth for the first time. It was dizzying, this feeling of… completeness rushing through him. He shifted them, pressing her into the mattress with his body, his cock already hard and aching with the knowledge of what he was about to do.

When he pulled back, he saw her in a new light: eyes sparkling, lips bee-stung and glistening from his kiss. There was something satisfying in the way she looked at him with such eagerness. He didn't wait, didn't ask permission one more time, even though that was what he wanted to do.

Instead, he pulled back and shifted so his cock was nudging at her folds. The warm, slick heat pulled him forward as, with one smooth motion, he buried himself inside her. He shuddered at the sensations bombarding him. It wasn't that he hadn't had sex recently, more that it had never felt this good, this… right. He buried his nose in her neck, allowing her to pull him closer still as she folded her body around him.

He held as still as he could, waiting for the overwhelming sensations to subside. Finally, he couldn't wait any longer. He started to move, circling his hips, pulling back bit by bit as he pressed into her. It felt like something was driving him, something outside of himself, but he couldn't have stopped at that point if he'd wanted to.

He pulled away just a bit to see Magnus beneath him, pressing up into him, her head thrown back, ecstasy written clearly over her face. He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, sinking into the sensation of lips against lips, tongues tangling, advance and retreat.

When he pulled back, she was smiling up at him, the very picture of bliss. He could feel an echo of it building inside him, even barely moving as he was. 

Magnus reached up and cupped his cheek. "It's okay, Will. It's okay to let go."

As if her words alone could bring it, his orgasm slammed through him. He had enough presence of mind to push into her a few more times, his fingers ghosting over her clit in an effort to bring her over the edge with him. Her body bowed up from the bed as she opened her mouth in a silent scream, her inner walls clenching almost painfully around him.

He collapsed in an inelegant sprawl half on her, half on the bed, breathing heavily as if he'd run a marathon. It took him several long minutes to catch his breath, but he finally rolled off her, flopping onto his back beside her.

"You alright?" she asked.

He chuckled. "Oh, I think it's safe to say that I'm doing just fine. You?"

"I'm lovely, thanks," she said. She rolled over and snuggled into his side. "Been a long while since I've enjoyed sex that much. You are a revelation, Will."

"I don't know about that," Will said, pulling her in close. "Not actually some of my better work, if I'm being honest. Next time I'll really bring it."

He froze for a moment, realizing that he hadn't even asked if this was more than a one-time thing. But it was like she could read his mind, because she chuckled as she burrowed closer.

"Relax, Will. Now that we've taken this step, I've no intention of going back."

"Are you reading my mind?" he asked.

"Not as such, no," she said. "But I know how you think. And I know this has been difficult for you. Now, rest. We'll deal with the rest of it later."

Will pulled the covers over them and settled in. He pressed a kiss to her brow, closing his eyes and trying to let go of the stress of the last few days. He didn't think he'd be able to sleep, but his body had other ideas. 

He drifted away, content in the cocoon of blankets, wrapped around the most important person in his world.

~o~

They didn't surface for another day. Will felt like it was somehow decadent to spend that day in bed, but Magnus' raised eyebrow when he started making noises the next morning about heading to his office put a stop to that idea. He wasn't sure it was strictly necessary, but at the same time, he was enjoying this new aspect to their relationship enough to admit he hadn't really wanted to leave her rooms anyway.

He followed her to her office after they'd finished breakfast, only to find Tesla fully ensconced behind her desk, papers spread out over the surface. He looked like he was in full research mode, though Will wasn't entirely sure what he had to research.

"Ah, so you finally decided to rejoin the land of the living," he said as he watched them cross the room. "I can admit to being slightly jealous of the way you've spent the last two days, but really, was it all so necessary?"

"As necessary as you commandeering my office, I suppose," Magnus said, raising an eyebrow at him as he sat sprawled in her office chair.

When he showed no signs of abandoning his comfortable perch, Magnus rolled her eyes and settled on the only corner of the desk not full of papers. 

"Does that mean you have something?" Will asked, leaning against the desk on Tesla's other side.

"Oh, you could say that," Tesla said. "As requested, Flatman and Squirrel Girl went back to the warehouse."

"I never figured you for a comic book guy," Will said.

"Please," Tesla said, swinging around to look at Will. "I don't read them. I did help inspire several. Who do you think the inspiration for Wonder Woman was?"

Tesla's eyes cut to Magnus, but the woman herself just rolled her eyes. "You always were a bit cheeky. That costume is completely impractical, Nikola, and you know it. You just wanted to see me wandering around in my underthings."

"Of course I did," Tesla said, winking saucily at her. "And you cut a fine figure, too."

"Wait," Will said, shaking his head. "I thought Wonder Woman was inspired by Marston's mistress."

"That's the story Marston wanted people to believe," Tesla said. "Because the real truth—that it was a couple of men telling stories over wine and pasta—was slightly less interesting. Still, it'd make a great movie. I should see if anyone's got the rights."

"Didn't they make Wonder Woman the Justice League's secretary at one point?" Will asked.

"Well past my involvement," Tesla said, shaking his head. "By that time, I was in London working on a little thing called World War II."

"Gentlemen," Magnus said, clearing her throat to get their attention. She gave each of them a quelling look. "You were saying, Nikola?"

"Ah yes, the warehouse," Tesla said. "As you suspected, the place was wired. Specifically, the lab and the holding cell where you found Will. Cameras and microphones. All of them had been disabled by the time your two associates had arrived, but there was a phone tap on the land line, which I found interesting considering Wolf Boy said no one had made any phone calls from that place in a while."

"A data line, perhaps?" Magnus asked.

"Hard-wired, just in case they lost the wireless feed," Tesla said. "Henry's tracking it now, but I'm betting it'll lead directly to the Cabal's headquarters."

"And we're certain at this point that it's the Cabal?" Magnus asked. "No doubt?"

Tesla waved a hand at the piles of papers on the desk. "I've spent the last 36 hours crawling through incorporation documents and lease agreements and bank transfers—and before you ask, I've covered my tracks so no one will know it was you that was looking."

"I expected nothing less, but shouldn't Henry be doing this? Or the Big Guy?" Magnus asked.

"Your little furry companions are trying to track the purchases of the technology used to monitor Forsythe's little remote lab," Tesla said. "We've tracked both the lease agreement and the tech purchases through several shell corporations, but I think we've finally found their common point of origin."

"So, who is it?" Will asked.

"All roads appear to dead-end at a company called Rosetta," Tesla said. "Their headquarters is in New City, across the river."

"And you're sure it's the Cabal?" Will asked. "No doubts?"

"No doubts," Tesla said. "Some of the subsidiary corporations, as well as a number of the shell corporations they've been using to move people and equipment are either the same ones the Cabal used to use, or offshoots of the Cabal-fronted companies. Far too many coincidences to be anyone else."

"It could be someone trying to make us think it's the Cabal," Magnus said.

"Throw us off the scent so we'll be looking in the wrong place while the real bad guys get away?" Will asked. "It's possible."

"Except that some of the names I've come across are the same people," Tesla said. "They were low-level flunkies in the old subsidiaries who've now risen to become officers in the new companies. I've cross-checked the names six ways to Sunday; if they're imposters, the backstopping is first-rate. I mean, MI-6 couldn't have done better."

"So what you're saying is that you believe these are the real remnants of the Cabal, reforming and pushing ahead with the same agenda," Will said.

"Same goal, different path to achieve it," Tesla said. "Is it really such a surprise that they've managed to rise from the ashes?"

"No, I rather think it's not," Magnus said with a sigh. "So, we know the who, and we have a place. What say we pay our new old nemesis a visit?"

"I thought you'd never ask," Tesla said.

Will couldn't help it, he let out a relieved sigh. Maybe they could stop these people from doing this to someone else, or maybe they'd find an empty office and a clueless receptionist. But at least they had something.

"We should do some surveillance on their HQ," Will said. "Make sure we know the lay of the land before we go in guns blazing. I doubt they've got any heavy artillery that close to other buildings in downtown, but these people don't strike me as terribly rational."

"The mad-scientist types never are," Magnus said. "I'll set Kate and the Big Guy to assembling our equipment. I'd like to do this as quietly as possible, so we don't raise any alarms. Will you be joining us, Nikola?"

"Oh, I wouldn't miss this for anything," Tesla said. His grin nearly stretched off his face.

"I'm warning you now, we're going in non-lethal," Magnus said. "If we can, I'd like to leave our current guests behind when we leave. With a few memory modifications, they shouldn't remember ever having been at the Sanctuary, and if we're careful in our infiltration, we should be able to make it look like industrial espionage."

"You suck the fun out of almost everything, you know?" Tesla said.

"No, that'd be you, Fang," Will said. He stood up, tucking his hands into his pockets. "I'll check in with Henry, see if he's made any more progress on the tech front. I'd like to know what type of surveillance equipment these people have so we can plan our countermeasures."

"Good idea," Magnus said. "I'm hopeful we'll be able to prevent these people from spreading more of their taint to the population."

"Your lips to God's ears," Will said as he turned and left the room. 

Now that he had an objective, he couldn't wait to get started. He could never go back to what he was before, but closure seemed to be within reach.

~o~


	8. Chapter 8

The world of superheroes is black and white; the world of monsters is not. Sometimes you need evil to fight evil.  
~Donna Langley

~o~

Magnus watched as the rest of the team settled into the sofas in her office. They were all there, including Nikola, who hadn't disappeared as she'd expected him to. She'd have to figure out why, because up to now, any rival for her affections had been met with cool indifference at a minimum, and more often open hostility. Will was almost a brother in arms at this point. It made her very suspicious of Nikola's motives, but for now she could only be grateful to have him with them.

"Alright," she said as Will took a seat with his customary cup of coffee. He'd adapted well once they'd bonded, so that not even the taste of a strong cup of coffee had thrown his senses off. She shook off that thought and refocused on the job at hand. "We've tracked the Cabal back to this office building in New City."

She pointed at the picture on the screen she'd set up for her 'show-and-tell', as Nikola had dubbed it.

"Isn't that the new Sabato Tower?" Kate asked. "They haven't even finished it yet."

"The first twenty floors are done," Henry said. "Including a couple of sub-basements that have some interesting properties. They haven't officially opened the building, because it's only got the one tenant. The builder's website says they plan to finish the top twenty floors and hold a 'grand opening' once they've identified a tenant. Or two. Website says they're not picky."

"What are the odds they haven't found another tenant because their current tenant has paid them handsomely to stall?" Nikola asked. He sipped from his glass and tilted his head. "It's what I would do, especially if I were up to no good. I wouldn't really want anyone else in the building. Too much gossip and too many security risks."

"I'd buy that," Will said. "If they're continuing Dr. Forsythe's research, they wouldn't want people stumbling on to their floors. Even if the floors are card-reader access only, computers have glitches all the time. This way, they can pay the security guard in the lobby and only their people ever see the inside of the building."

"I did a little e-snooping on the building," Henry said. He tapped a few times on his tablet, and the picture on the large monitor changed. "This is the layout of the building, based on the blueprints filed with the city. Granted, they could have changed anything behind closed doors after the city inspected the building, but we think this is the actual layout."

Will got up and moved closer to the monitor. "Five whole floors of labs? Including both sub-basements?" He whistled. "That's a lot of lab space. What's the company say they're using them for?"

"Medical research," the Big Guy said. "Company website says they're a genetics research lab. Mostly looking for genetic triggers and cures for multiple diseases."

"Here," Henry said as he tapped at his tablet again. The website popped up on the screen. "Have a look."

Magnus joined him as Henry scrolled through the pages. Nikola sidled up to her other side, eyes flying through the text on the pages.

"Cheeky buggers," she muttered.

"I'll say," Nikola said. "They're basically advertising the same method they used to modify Will. CRISPR sequences and all. It's like they want to be caught."

"Wait, this is what she shot into me?" Will asked, waving a hand at the screen.

"Or some variation thereof," Nikola said. "I wondered if she'd gotten the idea from someone else. Chat room obsessions aside, her education doesn’t support her developing the delivery method on her own."

"It's not like we needed further confirmation," Will said, "but there it is. Definitely working together. Probably the Cabal."

Magnus turned around. "Henry, were you able to get a look inside?"

"Yeah, turns out these people are idiots who back up all their secured data to the cloud," Henry said. He stood up and wandered over to the monitor. The blueprint popped up again as he started pointing out various things. "So, three labs on ten, eleven and twelve, plus these two in the sub-basement. We think these two down here are the real biohazard labs. 

"There are empty floors above and below ten and twelve, likely to isolate the ventilation for those floors," he said, continuing the tour.

"Or they could contain even more mysterious and dangerous things," Nikola said. "No matter, I think I'll be slated to investigate those floors."

"Agreed," Magnus said. "What else? Security measures?"

"Card reader in the elevator lobby of each floor, including the labs," Henry said. "I've duped a bunch of cards, so we can access all areas of the building, no problem. Cameras scattered all around, but I've hijacked the feed, so we should be good to go on surveillance. We can loop the feed at any time if we need to. I've recorded a ton of footage for that on each floor."

"These guys really are idiots," Nikola said. "Alright, so we can get in, and probably not be seen. What are we looking for once we get in there, and what do we do once we find it? I'm assuming you don't want me to shred anyone inside."

"No shredding," Magnus said, shaking her head. Nikola had become even more bloodthirsty since his re-vamping. It would worry her more except he seemed to have a great deal more control of his appetites than he did before. "Our priorities are data retrieval and disabling any currently-running experiments. We'll leave our dear Dr. Forsythe behind on our way out."

"What about the flunky?" Nikola asked. "He's just as much a liability at this point. Maybe more so because he's more dependent on the money they're paying him."

"Ah, yes," Magnus said with a devious smile. "Well, when the Cabal wakes up after our little invasion, they'll find that one of their own stole their data and was preparing to sell it to the highest bidder. Too bad, really. But I'm sure the authorities will take care of him."

"I like it," Nikola said with a big grin.

"I assume you're going to make copies of that data for us at the same time," Will said.

"Of course," Magnus said, smiling at him. "We need to understand what else they may wish to accomplish, given that they now know what's possible. We may not be able to undo what they've done, but understanding their ultimate plans is useful in case this isn't the only cell of Cabal operatives out there."

"You think there are more of them?" Henry asked.

"Of course there are more of them," Kate said. She nudged Henry's shoulder as she stepped up beside him. "These guys may be idiots, but that doesn't mean they're the only ones. If they were smart, they diversified themselves all over the world so that, if one cell were caught, the rest could continue on."

"Precisely," Magnus said. "We'll know more after we raid their headquarters. Now, if our equipment is arranged, we should get ready to go. I want to be in and out well before sunrise."

"We're all set," Henry said. "Just waiting on you to say the word."

"Well, then," Magnus said with a smile. "Shall we?"

~o~

They parked the van in a back alley, out of sight of anyone who might be passing by. While Biggie set up the video uplink, Magnus, Will, Kate and Henry donned protective armor and checked their weapons, Tesla smirking at them the whole time.

"Once we get inside, I'll want you and Kate to take the basement labs," Magnus said to Will. "Henry and I will check the upper floors while Nikola investigates the upper labs and the floors above and below. And Nikola—"

"I know," Tesla said. "No slashing." 

He flashed his claws, raking the air as he made a subtle hissing noise. Will rolled his eyes at the theatrics. 

"Are we expecting anyone to be in there?" Will asked.

"Night shift," Biggie said. "One security guard in the lobby, minimal staff in the labs—one or two at most in each lab—and no one on the office floors."

"What's the risk if we use flash-bangs or gas grenades?" Kate asked. "Any hazardous materials we'd risk blowing up?"

"Not knowing what they're working with in the labs makes me wary of using anything that could spark a fire," Magnus said. "I'd prefer to take the labs intact, at a minimum. We don't want to risk spreading biohazards unnecessarily, should anything go wrong."

"Amen to that," Henry muttered.

"Remember, we want this to appear as though someone on the inside has committed industrial espionage," Magnus said. "Are we ready?"

"As we'll ever be," Will said. The rest nodded. 

"Shall we, then?" Magnus asked. Not waiting for an answer, she turned and headed for the side entrance they'd identified as the only one without a camera.

Henry jimmied the lock and they all slipped inside. The corridor was dim, a few flickering lights overhead, but Will's eyes adjusted almost immediately. It was like wearing night-vision goggles, only far less cumbersome. 

He followed Magnus down the hall until they came to the access door for the stairs. Henry pointed to Will and Kate, indicating that they should turn right and head down to the basement level. Magnus nodded at him, a wealth of faith and trust on her face. She turned, and Henry followed her in the opposite direction, headed up towards the offices. Tesla slipped away quietly, his own mission clear.

Will and Kate quietly descended the stairs, making sure to keep their steps light so that if there was anyone in the building, they wouldn't hear either of them coming. When they arrived at the first of the sub-basement levels, Will took the key card out of his pocket and waved it over the card reader on the wall next to the doorknob. The lock disengaged, so Will turned the knob and opened the door slightly, extending his hearing out to try to figure out if anyone was on the other side of the door.

Kate's hand shot out, grabbing Will's wrist tightly. Will turned around, raising an eyebrow. Kate just shrugged.

"Keeps you grounded so you don't zone," she whispered. It was barely loud enough to be considered speech, but to someone like him—to a Sentinel—with enhanced hearing, she might as well have been shouting.

Will nodded and turned back to the door, refocusing his hearing on the space beyond the door. The radio in his ear suddenly crackled to life, making him nearly jump out of his skin. 

"According to the card reader, only one person in that lab," Biggie said. "No ins or outs since we arrived."

"Copy that," Kate said. She looked to Will, nodding her head. 

Will visibly relaxed his shoulders and turned back to the door, once again stretching out his hearing. He closed his eyes as he felt Kate slip her hand over his wrist once more. He heard a loud pounding, which startled his eyes open. When he dialed back his hearing just a little, he realized it was heartbeats he was hearing. His, Kate's and one other, likely the person in the lab just beyond the door.

"Confirmed, one person inside," he whispered to Kate.

He pulled the door open, his gun already in his hand. The door opened into a vestibule, where there was another card reader. Waving the key card over this one, he saw the light above the door go from red to green. He turned to look at Kate, who nodded at him, then turned back and opened the door. 

They both slipped inside to find a lab, well-lit and full to overflowing with equipment and large coolers. Inside each cooler were bottles of liquids, trays of petri dishes and test tubes by the dozen.

The lone lab tech looked up from the microscope he'd been using, frowning at their black clothes and the guns. "Um, you guys probably shouldn't be in here. We've got—"

That was all he got out before a tranq dart nailed him in the neck. He slapped a hand over his neck, looking at them with wide, startled eyes before he fell off the stool and landed in a heap on the floor. Will looked at Kate, who just shrugged his shoulders.

"Like I didn't know I wasn't supposed to be in this lab," she said. They both looked around the room, taking in all the details. "Any idea what any of this is for?"

"Nope," Will said, shaking his head. He spotted a computer on a desk on the far side of the room. "But I bet that computer has some interesting data."

He crossed the room and slid the USB drive Henry had prepared into the slot on the side of the laptop. It came to life, a dialog box asking for a passcode.

Will tapped his radio. "Biggie, I've hooked up the download program to the laptop in this lab. Are you getting the data?"

"It's coming through now," Biggie said. 

"Now what?" Kate asked.

"Now, we wait," Will said. "Shouldn’t take long."

Henry had rigged the USB sticks with a Trojan Horse-type program, as well as a robust wifi connection, so any data they found could be copied and transmitted back to the Sanctuary quickly. He'd also set up a scrambler, so that not even the best hacker in the world could track where they'd sent the data. They'd make a copy and plant it with the lab tech working with Dr. Forsythe, and they'd be all set.

"Okay, looks like this one's done," Will said. "Grab your dart and let's hit the other lab."

Kate walked over and retrieved the dart from the tech's neck, as they headed for the door. They repeated the process in the other lab, but didn't find anything more interesting in there. They did, however, notice that there was a third sub-basement, below the ones that Henry had shown on the blueprints.

"Office floors are clear," Henry said over the radio as they were finishing up the second lab. "No one up here. We found their server farm, though. I'm downloading the files now, but it's gonna take a while."

"Copy that," Will said. "There's apparently another sub-basement in this building, so we're going to go check it out."

"Be careful," Magnus said over the radio. 

"We will," Will said. "Anyone heard from Tesla?"

"Looking for me?"

Will didn't jump, but it was a close thing. He turned around to find Tesla leaning against the door jamb of the lab they'd just cleared. He was supposed to have enhanced senses, and yet he hadn't even heard the man approaching them. It concerned him, but not enough to make an issue of it. This was his first time using his enhanced senses, after all. It would take more practice than this to be able to use them without thought.

"You know, it's not nice to sneak up on people like that," Kate said as she pushed past him.

"Oh, I don't know," Tesla drawled, watching her go by with a hungry look on his face. "I enjoyed it."

Will shook off how creepy it was to see Tesla look at anyone like that as he followed Kate out of the lab, keying his mic as he went. "Seems we found Tesla. We're headed for the third basement."

"I want regular reports, Will," Magnus said. 

He could hear the concern in her voice, but Will knew he and Kate could manage just fine. Plus, while he might not like to say it, Tesla could be useful now and then.

"Will do," he said.

They moved back into the stairwell, Will checking above them and Kate leaning over the railing to see what was below.

"Not that I can see anything," Kate said, "but it looks clear from here."

Tesla leaped over the railing and hit the floor below them with not even so much as a sound. He'd have to ask the man how he did that, because that skill could come in handy someday. He disappeared from view, but came back only a moment later.

"All clear," he said. "There's another card reader here. I can't hear anything beyond the door, but it looks like it came from a bank vault, so that's not saying much."

Will and Kate clattered down the stairs quickly, joining Tesla on the landing. He stretched out his hearing, but couldn't hear anything beyond the door, which meant that they'd have to open it in order to find out what was beyond. He caught a whiff of something, and took a deep breath, taking the scents into his nose, parsing through them as best he could without the training to do so.

"I think…" he started, tilting his head as he took another deep breath. "It smells like people. No chemicals or any kind of sterilization. Just people. And food, maybe."

"You don't think…" Kate said, but trailed off, as if she didn't even want to be thinking what she was thinking, much less putting it into words.

"That maybe they've advanced to human trials?" Tesla asked. "Maybe these are the rejects. From what I could gather from Forsythe's research notes, she'd been the only one successfully able to replicate the Sentinel genes."

"Doesn't mean the hadn't tried it on anyone else before me," Will said. His stomach did a little flip-flop at the thought. "Or that they didn't try it on someone else once they knew she'd had a breakthrough."

"Only one way to find out," Kate said.

She pulled out the key card Henry had given her and waved it over the card reader. The locks on the vault door spun slowly until they'd released. Wil and Kate looked at each other, then at Tesla.

"Oh for—it's just a door," he huffed. 

Will and Kate both shrugged, so Tesla reached out and spun the wheel, disengaging the pins from the wall and pulling the door wide open. They all stepped through, and the bottom dropped out of Will's world.

There was a long corridor ahead of them, and as they walked down, they saw rooms on either side. There were windows in the doors, so they checked the rooms as they went. The rooms, thankfully, were empty until they got about halfway down the corridor. Clustered in the middle of the corridor were five that were occupied.

"Jesus," Will said, looking at the people trapped in the rooms.

They all looked perfectly normal, if asleep. Normal, like him, but he suspected that they were all Sentinels, like he was now. There were easily thirty rooms down this corridor, which meant that the Cabal were planning on a small army of Sentinels.

"Will, come have a look," Kate called from the other end of the corridor. 

Will followed her voice and found her standing at a junction. There were more rooms running in either direction. Dozens of them. Maybe even hundreds of them.

"How many…?" he asked, barely able to even think what he was thinking.

"None here," Kate said. He could hear the relief in her voice.

Tesla jogged up to them. "I didn't find anyone in the rooms down that way either. I'm going to keep following the corridors, but I think it's safe to say that those five are the only ones at this point. You'll want to call Helen. She needs to see this."

~o~

In the end, they only found the five people that Will, Kate and Tesla had found down the original corridor. While Magnus was grateful for that, it made their little excursion just that much more complicated.

Will had gone nearly non-verbal over the course of the last fifteen minutes. She could sense through their nascent bond that he was equal parts angry and frustrated, the exact mirror of her own feelings on the matter. They'd raided this building in an effort to prevent anyone else from being altered against their will, only to find five more people who may have suffered the same fate as Will.

Thankfully, they were all still unconscious. She didn't relish the idea of trying to remove them from the building without explaining why they should trust her and her team. Best to remove them while they were still unaware; they could explain better once they had them all in the Sanctuary infirmary.

Will was still standing in front of one of the cells, arms crossed, staring at the woman inside. She was about Will's age, blond and slim. Magnus stepped up beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Will, are you well?"

He sighed. "Yeah. I'm angry, but I'm okay. I just can't believe they moved so quickly to start dosing people with the serum."

"Given that they were looking to build an army of Sentinels, I'm not surprised," Magnus said. "But we'll look through the data and test these five to make sure that the changes have taken effect. If so, we'll help them. We owe them that much."

"Thank you," Will said, turning his head to look at her, a ghost of a smile on his face.

"No need for thanks," Magnus said. "It's our duty to help them. We know what's been done to them, so we're in the unique position to offer assistance. And as you've already walked part of this path, you'll be able to counsel them on how to cope with the transition."

"I'm not so sure about that," Will said. "It's not like I've been a Sentinel for very long. I'm still not sure how far I can push my senses, or what I'm even capable of."

"That will all come with time, Will," Magnus said. "And you know I'll be there. For all of you, but for you especially."

"Yeah," Will said. He took a deep breath and uncrossed his arms, tucking his hands into his pockets. "Is the transport team here yet?"

"Yes, they’ve just arrived," Magnus said. "We'll get these five ready for transport and leave Dr. Forsythe behind in one of these rooms. Poetic justice, don't you think?"

"Sounds about right," Will said.

"We'll get through this," Magnus said. She looped her arm around his shoulders, pulling him to her in a side-hug. "We'll get through this together. As we always have."

~o~


	9. Chapter 9

You get to choose what monsters you want to slay.  
~Carrie Fisher

~o~

Will stood on the roof of the Sanctuary, staring out at the twinkling lights of the city below. It had been a helluva week, though it felt a lot longer than that.

After their raid on Rosetta, they'd brought back the five people they'd found imprisoned in the sub-basement. It turned out that they'd all volunteered for what they'd thought was a drug trial. They'd signed non-disclosure agreements and agreed to stay overnight at the facility so they could be monitored.

None of them had anticipated what would be done to them, and by the time they'd realized that the drug trial they thought they'd signed up for wasn't really a drug trial, it was too late. The Cabal hadn't even waited for Forsythe to prove that her serum would work; they'd started rounding up guinea pigs almost as soon as she'd put the finishing touches on her serum. 

Forsythe, it seemed, had nursed a grudge against Magnus for a number of years for what she'd perceived as the woman ignoring her and rebuffing her attempts to reach out. So, her choice of test subject had been driven in large part by her desire to get revenge against Magnus for her past treatment of Forsythe. Magnus, for her part, hadn't even remembered who Forsythe was.

Which didn't help Will or the other five victims. He'd spoken to each of them, and to a person, they were all shocked and angry. Will could relate; after all, he'd had the same reaction when Magnus had explained what Forsythe had done to him. He'd balked at the suggestion that he be the one to counsel the victims; he was in no position to help them through this whole experience when he was still trying to cope with it himself. Magnus had simply said that that's what made him the ideal person to help.

He still wasn't sure she was right, but he wasn't going to argue the point any more. The fact was, they were all in the same boat, and if they could help each other through, wasn't that better than doing it alone?

"Here you are."

Will turned to find Magnus leaning against the doorjamb of the roof access door, arms crossed, looking as immaculately turned out as she had when they'd met that morning for a progress report. Crisp white blouse, slim black skirt and those damnable heels that made her almost as tall as him, she was a sight to behold, and he found himself reacting to her in a still-unfamiliar way.

She pushed off the wall when he didn't respond, walking over to join him near the parapet he'd long-ago claimed as his own. She ran a hand over his shoulder and down his arm, lacing her fingers with his and squeezing gently.

"Are you alright?" she asked, a small frown creasing between her eyes.

"Yeah," he said. He could feel his gut unclenching, just from having her near. It was still such a wonder to him that she could make him feel such things. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just thinking."

"Over thinking, rather," she said pointedly.

"Maybe," he said on a shrug. "I can't help but wonder about what they were going to do with our newest guests. I mean, they created these Sentinels. Did they have Guides in mind? Or is there a serum out there that'll turn some unsuspecting person into a Guide the same way they turned us into Sentinels?"

"Henry and Nikola are still going through the data we copied," she said. "The Big Guy is searching for any data on the dark web about potential Cabal activities. We're hoping our little raid came as a shock to them and they haven't had time to set up another operation. Plus, we did corrupt their data during our little excursion, so that's at least something."

"Doesn't mean they can't start over someplace else," he said. "That's what I worry about. That they'll start over and do this to someone else. Or a lot of someone elses. And we won't get there in time and—"

Magnus laid a finger over his lips. "Stop trying to borrow trouble. We'll keep an eye out and be there the next time they try something like this."

Will relaxed just a little. He could feel her certainty through their bond, which was a source of wonder all its own. The longer they were bonded, and the more time they spent together, the more they could sense each other. Magnus was still doing research on what they could expect, but so far it had been anything but burdensome. It had been… kind of great, actually.

"I think I've lost you," she said with a small smile.

He shook his head. "Sorry. Wool-gathering."

"Come on," she said, tugging on his hand a little. "The others are gathering in my office. We'll go over what we know and talk about next steps. You'll do better if we have a plan."

"Probably," he said, shaking his head. He hated being so transparent, but he had a feeling that wasn't due to the bond, but due to him just being him.

Magnus leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips. Will relaxed into the kiss, wallowing in the rightness of it for a few moments. When he pulled back, her eyes were shining with joy. It was so good to see that look back that he was almost grateful for the events of the last week if it meant he could see her look like that more often.

"The others are waiting," she said. "Shall we?"

"They can wait," he said, pulling her to him and wrapping his arms around her. 

Kissing a girl—his girl—on the roof overlooking the glittering lights of the city was far more important at the moment than a room full of people, even people he liked. Besides, they weren't going anywhere.

~o~

"So nice of you to join us," Tesla said as Will and Magnus finally made it back to her office.

Tesla was smirking, as if he knew what they'd been doing for the last ten minutes or so. He probably did, but that didn't mean Will couldn't rub his nose in it a little.

"The roof, the stars, the lights of the city and a pretty girl," Will said airily. "How could I resist?"

"Touché, my friend," Tesla said, raising his glass in a mock toast. "Touché."

"Alright, if you gentlemen have had enough," Magnus said as she took her seat near the fireplace. Will settled in beside her, earning another smirk from Tesla. "Henry?"

"Right," Henry said. He tapped a few commands on his tablet and new screens started popping up on the monitor that never seemed to have left Magnus' office. "So, we're nowhere close to being done going through the data we stole—um, liberated," he amended at Magnus' frown.

"No, in this case, I'd say we stole it," Tesla said. He tossed his own smirk at Magnus before he went on. "At any rate, the data we have been through suggests that their testing phase has been going on for a while. There were a few… mishaps along the way. If we catch these bastards, we could probably make a case for murder. It's one of the reasons why they brought Forsythe in."

"But I thought she didn't have the know-how to create the delivery system," Will said.

"She didn't," Henry said. "But she had the genetics knowledge to find the exact genes they were looking for. Before they recruited her, they'd tried this with a few test subjects, but they didn't survive the transformation."

"From what the research notes say, they'd tried using the source blood undiluted at first," Tesla said darkly. "There are pictures—which you don't need to see, ever, by the way—that show the results. It was a gruesome way to die, and yet they tried it three times before they realized they were going to need some more specialized help."

"That is truly horrifying," Kate said. 

"I thought they'd used the entire sample to try to create those super soldiers?" Will asked.

"Apparently not," Tesla said. "Or they were able to procure another sample from somewhere. I'm not sure you could replicate it or grow it in a lab, but regardless, they had more than enough for their purposes."

"Yeah, but it doesn't look like they knew how powerful it was," Kate said. "I mean, the last time the Cabal used the source blood, they created mindless super-creatures. Sorry."

Kate turned apologetic eyes to Magnus, who flashed a brief but sorrowful smile at her. Ashley's death still haunted her, even to this day. Will slipped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer. She leaned into him, accepting the comfort he was offering her. Other than a wide-eyed look from Henry, no one seemed to notice or care.

"Remember, the people in charge of the Cabal now were the flunkies from the last iteration," Tesla said. "They had what they thought would be a gold mine, only to realize they had no idea what to do with all the gold."

"Do we know who they hired, beyond Dr. Forsythe?" Magnus asked.

"We're still searching though the records," Henry said. "I'm building a list, but it'll take time. Safe to say it's not anyone we've ever heard of. Kinda not their style."

"They're looking for the disenfranchised, the disappointed, the marginalized," Tesla said. "I'll start looking around at scientists who've fallen out of favor in the scientific community and dropped off the grid. If they've got another lab someplace else, they'd have had to hire someone to staff it." 

"What about the break-in?" Will asked.

"Our little nighttime excursion hasn't turned up on the news yet, if that's what you're asking," Kate said. "I've been checking all the local and national feeds and I got nothing."

"Not a surprise, really," Magnus said. "It's not like they could call the authorities to report a break-in. They'd have to explain what was stolen and why. I can't see them taking that risk, just in case the authorities turned up something untoward during the course of their investigation."

"We set up some cameras around the building, to keep an eye on things," Henry said. "They moved out of the building the next day. Packed everything probably including the kitchen sink and bugged out of town."

"Any idea where they've gone?" Will asked.

"There's another Rosetta-owned property outside Toronto," Biggie said. "I'm tracking a couple of more properties they own as well. If they show up, we'll know."

"And do we have any information on their activities beyond these experiments?" Magnus asked.

"I've found references to offers of a serum for sale," Biggie said. "Says the serum will give a person super-human capabilities."

"That sounds alarmingly familiar," Tesla said. "Has anyone made a purchase yet?"

"Not that I can find," Biggie said. "But I'll stay on it."

"Alright," Magnus said, effectively bringing the meeting to a close. "We'll gather again tomorrow to check in. I want to make sure we've covered all angles before we close the book on this case."

"Looks like you and I have another date, Wolf Boy," Tesla said with a disturbingly large grin.

Henry just shuddered as he stood up and headed for the door. "Just as long as you eat before you visit my lab. I am not food, no matter what you might think."

Tesla laughed loud and long at that as he followed Henry out of the room. Kate and Biggie followed, playfully jostling each other as they went. That left Will and Magnus alone in her office once again.

~o~

Will took a deep breath, pulling Magnus even closer. He pressed a kiss to her head, sighing when she just leaned in closer.

"Nikola has been a revelation," Magnus murmured.

"He's like a dog on a bone," Will said, chuckling. "I didn't think it was possible for him to be this altruistic. He's even been working with our guests on their skills, trying to help them moderate their instincts so they don't run away with them."

"He is capable of being selfless," Magnus said. "He did, after all, work with us during World War II. It was his work with the code-breakers that helped create the wireless teletype machine we used to use to communicate with one another."

"I guess I've just never known him to care about anything beyond his small world," Will said. "He's actually… not a bad guy. And if you tell him I said that, I'll deny it to my dying day."

"Duly noted," Magnus said. She leaned her head back and looked at him. "How are you really? All this talk of the Cabal and what they were trying to achieve, plus whatever the Big Guy has discovered, has to have unsettled you."

"It does," he said. "But we also have a great team—Tesla included—and I know we're not going to let this go until we've finished the job."

"No, we won't," Magnus said. "Apart from the impact it's had on you, I'm not inclined to allow the Cabal—in whatever form it's taking now—to simply run amok in the world, creating genetically enhanced beings they have no hope of understanding or controlling. We—The Five—we're responsible for bringing the Source blood into this world. I have a responsibility to make sure that mistake doesn't destroy it."

"It's not your fault the Cabal took an interest in the Source blood," Will said. "They're responsible for their own actions. But I don't disagree that the Sanctuary is in the best position to stop them. And we won't stop until we have. I promise you that."

"Thank you for that, Will," she said. "In some ways, I think the greatest blessing that's come from of all this is you. Out of all I've lost and gained as a result of my encounters with the Source blood, you are easily the best part."

"I—don't know what to say," he said, glancing away. He looked back at her, shifting a little on the couch so he could look her in the eye. "Maybe it's too soon to say this, but I love you. I think I've always loved you, ever since that first time I met you when I didn't even know who you were. And then you hit me with your car, and I fell a little more in love with you. And I guess I've been falling a little more every day, until I can't even remember a day when I didn't love you."

"Oh, Will," she said. She lay a hand on his cheek, smiling gently at him as she spoke. "I think I've known since the beginning that you were in love with me. I thought that it was more hero worship than truly romantic love, and that thought made me sad, though I tried to deny that truth for a long time. I told you once that I've loved John for so long that I don't know who I am without him. The truth is that, over the last few years, it's my relationship with you that's defined me, and I hadn't even realized it. I do love you, Will. I think I always have, though I tried to run away from it for a while. Living as long as I have—as long as I will—made choosing life partners… heartbreaking, to own the truth."

"But not anymore," Will said with a smile. "I'll be around for a good long time, and I promise I will never leave you lonely if I can help it."

"I know," Magnus said. "And for that I can be nothing but grateful. To know I won't face a day without you is a comfort all its own."

Will stood up and held out his hand. "How about we get started on all those years together?"

"That sounds like a wonderful idea," Magnus said as she stood up.

She took his hand, and together they headed for her rooms. Will knew there were things they'd have to discuss—the logistics of a life together—but for tonight, he just wanted to enjoy having Magnus close. The rest would work itself out.

Now, they had time for it all.

~Finis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.


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